THE JUMBLIES
by: Edward Lear (1812-1888)
I
- HEY 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.
-
- II
-
- 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 ribbon by way of a sail,
- To a small tobacco-pipe mast.
- And every one said who saw them go,
- "Oh! won't they soon be 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.
-
- III
-
- 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.
-
- IV
-
- 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.
-
- V
-
- 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.
-
- VI
-
- 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 every one 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.
"The Jumblies" is reprinted
from A Nonsense Anthology. Ed. Carolyn Wells. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915. |
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POEMS BY EDWARD LEAR |
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