The Mermaid (Shel Silverstien)
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When I was a lad in a fishing town, an old man said to me,
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"Well you can spend your life, your jolly life, just sailing on the sea
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You can search the world for pretty girls 'til your eyes are weak and dim
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But don't go swimming with a Mermaid son.
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If you don't know how to swim"
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'Cause her hair is green with seaweed and her skin is blue and pale
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And I'll tell you now before you start,
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You can love that girl with all your heart
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But you just don't love the other part,
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You're not gonna like the tail
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I signed on to whaling ship and the very first day at sea
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I've seen a Mermaid in the wave reachin' out to me
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Come live with me in the sea said she down on the ocean floor
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Well I'll show you a million wondrous things you've never seen before
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So over I jumped and she pulled me down; down to her seaweed bed
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And a pillow made of tortoiseshells she placed 'neath my head
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She fed me shrimps and caviar upon a silver dish
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From the head to the waist she was just my taste
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But the rest of her was a fish
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Her hair was green as seaweed and her skin was blue and pale
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Her face it was a work of art, I love that girl with all my heart
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But I only love the upper part, I did not like the tail
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Then one day she swam away I sang to the clams and the whales
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I'll miss her fins and the seaweed hair
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And the silvery shine of her scales
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Then her sister, she swam by set my heart a whirl
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'Cause the upper part was an ugly old fish
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But the bottom part was a girl
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Her toes were pink and rosy and her knees are smooth and pale
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Her legs they are a work of art
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I love that girl with all my heart
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I don't give a damn about the upper part
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And that's how I end my tale