Read aloud by Storyland Classics ✦ 43 seconds ✦ Watch on YouTube
A child, a boatman and a single penny. Christina Rossetti’s little ferry poem is a conversation across the water, perfect for two voices.
✦ The Poem ✦
by Christina Rossetti, from Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book (1872). Public domain.
“Ferry me across the water, Do, boatman, do.” “If you’ve a penny in your purse I’ll ferry you.”
“I have a penny in my purse, And my eyes are blue; So ferry me across the water, Do, boatman, do.”
“Step into my ferry-boat, Be they black or blue, And for the penny in your purse I’ll ferry you.”
✦ About the Poem ✦
“Ferry Me Across the Water” comes from Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book, the collection of short poems for children that Christina Rossetti published in 1872, the same book that gave us “Who Has Seen the Wind?”
The whole poem is a little conversation. A traveler asks the boatman for a ride, he asks for a penny, and the bargain is made. The boatman’s “be they black or blue” is a playful reply to the traveler’s blue eyes: whatever color your eyes are, a penny is the fare.
✦ Talk About It ✦
✦ For Grown-Ups ✦
Just a ferryman, the person who rowed travelers across a river for a small coin. Ferries like his were common in Rossetti’s day, before there were bridges at every crossing.
It is written as a conversation, so it works beautifully with two voices: one child plays the traveler and another the boatman. Add a paper boat or a real penny and act out stepping into the ferry.
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