Yule-tide: When Christmas Trees Go Up & Down

The Ships of Yule

When I was just a little lad,

Before I went to school,

I had a fleet of forty sail

I called the Ships of Yule;

Of every rig, from rakish brig

And gallant barkentine,

To little Fundy fishing boats

With gunwales painted green.

They used to go on trading trips

Around the world for me,

For though I had to stay on shore

My heart was on the sea.

They stopped at every port to call

From Babylon to Rome,

To load with all the lovely things

We never had at home;

With elephants and ivory

Bought from the King of Tyre,

And shells and silks and sandal-wood

That sailor men admire;

With figs and dates from Samarcand,

And squatty ginger-jars,

And scented silver amulets

From Indian bazaars;

With sugar-cane from Port of Spain

And pines from Singapore;

And when they had unloaded these

They could go back for more.

And even after I was big

And had to go to school,

My mind was often far away

Aboard the Ships of Yule.

- Bliss Carman, Echoes from Vagabondia, 2nd edn. Boston. Small, Maynard. 1913. 8-9.

When I was just a little lad, before I went to school, my parents used to have my siblings and I memorize poetry and excerpts from literature, in order to build our vocabularies, polish our diction, and develop our memories. This was one of those poems, and it is the one that has stuck in my mind most clearly into adulthood. I've never forgotten the first stanza, and while I had to look up the rest of it online, it felt more comfortable and familiar with every word, line and clack of the key. I'm looking forward to re-committing this to memory, and while I realize that posting this and saying that spoils the surprise a little, maybe I'll put on a little recital when I'm home for Christmas.

I plan on doing similar things with my eventual children. A mind is indeed a terrible thing to waste, and a child's mind doubly so.