Lap small and hollow 'gainst my cheek,
On sand and coral break;

"'Yet now,' my leetle son, says I,
A-drifting on the wave,
'That land I see so safe and green,
Is England, I believe.

"'And that there wood is English wood,
And this here cruel sea,
The selfsame old blue ocean
Years gone remembers me.

"'A-sitting with my bread and butter
Down ahind yon chitterin' mill;
And this same Marinere'--(that's me),
'Is that same leetle Will!--

"'That very same wee leetle Will
Eating his bread and butter there,
A-looking on the broad blue sea
Betwixt his yaller hair!'

"And here be I, my son, thrown up
Like corpses from the sea,
Ships, stars, winds, tempests, pirates past,
Yet leetle Will I be!"

He said no more, that sailorman,
But in a reverie