Well, I've pared this song down by another four lines and made some other word changes. Now it's perfect! Copy and paste into WORD/TIMES/12 to line up chords:

By Cicely Fox Smith, from the book SHIP MODELS by Cicely Fox Smith (page 87) published by Conway Maritime Press in 1972 from an original Country Life publication of 1951.
Adapted by Charlie Ipcar 8/2/07
Tune: after The Old Orange Flute

A Ship in a Bottle

C--------------------------------------G------------C
In a sailormen's restaurant down Rotherhithe way,
-------------------------Am--------------G------------G7
Where the din of the docksides rings loud all the day,
----------F---------------C--------------F----------C
And the breezes come sweeping off basin and pond,
--------------------Am-----G-----------C
And all the piled acres of lumber be-yond;
--------------------------------F
Among the stale odours of hot food and cold,
----C------------Am--------G------------G7
In a fly-spotted window I there did be-hold
--F--------C--------------F-----------C
A ship in a bottle some sailor had made
---------------------Am-------------G-----------------C
In his watches be-low, swinging South with the Trade.

Chorus:

C---------------------F
A ship in a bottle a-sailing away,
-------C-----------Am----------------G-------------G7
In the flying-fish weather through rainbows of spray,
------F----------C------------F----------------C
Over oceans of wonder by headlands that gleam,
----------------------Am-----------G----------C
To the harbours of youth on the wind of a dream!


In fancy I saw him all weathered and browned,
Deep crows'-feet and wrinkles his eyelids around,
A pipe in his teeth that seemed little the worse
For Liverpool hardtack and stringy salt horse –
The hairy forearm with its gaudy tattoo
Of a bold-looking female in scarlet and blue –
The fingers all roughened, toughened and scarred,
With hauling and hoisting, so calloused and hard. (Chorus)

A tiny full-rigger predestined to ride
To its cable of thread on its green-painted tide –
In its wine-bottle world while the old world rolled on,
Tho' the sailor who made it was long ago gone,
In fancy I listened, in fancy could hear
The thrum of the shrouds and the creak of the gear;
I thought of my youth with its pleasure and pain,
And the shipmate I loved was beside me again – (Chorus)

Cheerily,
Charley Noble