For many years I've watched the ships a-sailing to and fro, <br />The mighty ships, the little ships, the speedy and the slow: <br />And many a time I've told myself that someday I would go <br />Around the world that is so full of wonders. <br /> <br />The swift and stately liners, how they run without a rest! <br />The great three-masters, they have touched the East and told the West! <br />The monster burden-bearers - oh, they all have plunged and pressed <br />Around the world that is so full of wonders. <br /> <br />The cruiser and the battleship that loom as dark as doubt, <br />The devilish destroyer and the hateful hideous scout - <br />These deadly things may also rush, with roar and snarl and shout, <br />Around the world that is so full of wonders. <br /> <br />My lord he owns a grand white yacht, most beautiful and fine, <br />But seldom does she leave the firth lest he should fail to dine. <br />I'd find a thousand richer feasts than his - if she were mine - <br />Around the world that is so full of wonders. <br /> <br />The shabby tramp that like a wedge is hammered through the seas, <br />The little brown-sailed brigantine that traps the slightest breeze - <br />Oh, I'd be well content to fare aboard the least of these <br />Around the world that is so full of wonders. <br /> <br />The things I've heard, the things I've read, the things I've dreamed might be, <br />The boyish tales, the old men's yarns, they will not pass from me. <br />I've heard, I've read, I've dreamed - - - - But all the time I've longed to see - <br />Around the world that is so full of wonders. <br /> <br />So year by year watched the ships a-sailing to and fro, <br />The ships that come as strangers and the ships I've learned to know. <br />Folk smile to hear an old man say that someday he will go <br />Around the world that is so full of wonders.<br /><br />John Joy Bell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-ships/