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They went to
sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to
sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a
winter's morn, on a stormy day,
In a Sieve they went
to sea!
And when the Sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried, "You'll all be drowned!"
They
called aloud, "Our Sieve ain't big,
But we don't care
a button! we don't care a fig!
In a Sieve we'll go to
sea!"
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands
where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and
their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a
Sieve.
They sailed away in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they sailed so fast,
With only a beautiful
pea-green veil
Tied with a riband by way of a sail,
To a small tobacco-pipe mast;
And every one said, who
saw them go,
"Oh won't they be soon upset, you know!
For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long,
And
happen what may, it's extremely wrong
In a Sieve to
sail so fast!"
Far and few, far and few,
Are the
lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green,
and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a
Sieve.
The water it soon came in, it did,
The
water it soon came in;
So to keep them dry, they
wrapped their feet
In a pinky paper all folded neat,
And they fastened it down with a pin.
And they passed
the night in a crockery-jar,
And each of them said,
"How wise we are!
Though the sky be dark, and the
voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash
or wrong,
While round in our Sieve we spin!"
Far
and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the
Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands
are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
And
all night long they sailed away;
And when the sun
went down
They whistled and warbled a moony song
To the echoing sound of a coppery gong,
In the shade
of the mountains brown.
"O Timballoo! How happy we
are,
When we live in a sieve and a crockery-jar,
And all night long in the moonlight pale,
We sail
away with a pea-green sail,
In the shade of the
mountains brown!"
Far and few, far and few,
Are
the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are
green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea
in a Sieve.
They sailed to the Western Sea, they
did,
To a land all covered with trees,
And they
bought an Owl, and a useful Cart,
And a pound of
Rice, and a Cranberry Tart,
And a hive of silvery
Bees.
And they bought a Pig, and some green Jackdaws,
And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws,
And forty
bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree,
And no end of Stilton Cheese.
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the
Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands
are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
And
in twenty years they all came back,
In twenty years
or more,
And every one said, "How tall they've grown!
For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone,
And the hills of the Chankly Bore;"
And they drank
their health, and gave them a feast
Of dumplings made
of beautiful yeast;
And everyone said, "If we only
live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,
To the
hills of the Chankly Bore!"
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads
are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to
sea in a Sieve.
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