Carefully on our course we keepOver the trackless and rolling deep.Under our vessel slowly swimMinnows, tadpoles and monsters grim.(Fishes we know, but have never seen,)And a bull-frog croaks from the rushes green.
The journey near to an end has grown,When Alice's rudder strikes a stone.A lurch—a scramble—a sudden scream,And over we go in the wet, wet stream.
Alice is dripping, and so am I;Water has got into Jimmy's eye;But land is reached—we are safe, though cold.And we wonder if Mother may chance to scold?
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