Sailor Boy's Dream, The

DESCRIPTION: "In slumbers of midnight the sailor boy lay," dreaming of home; he and his father see each other with delight. Then he is awakened by lightning and thunder. The masts are gone, the ship is foundering; "around thy white bones the coral shall grow"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1847 (Forget-Me-Not-Songster)
KEYWORDS: sailor ship home father wreck death
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Forget-Me-Not-Songster, pp. 48-50, "The Sailor Boy's Dream" (1 text)
Roud #3691
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Oh Sailor Boy, Peace To Thy Soul
NOTES [59 words]: There is very little sign that this is traditional, but it was printed a lot! Whoever wrote it was pretty clearly thinking of Ariel's "Full fathom five" from Shakespeare's The Tempest (Act I, scene 2; lines 397-405 in the Riverside edition); both have references to bones and coral, and this has a line "full many a score fathom thy frame shall decay. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.0
File: FMNS048

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