Well, I sang this one at our local coffeehouse and it needs further revision. My mother had several good suggestions which I'm now incorporating (copy and paste into WORD/TIMES/12 to line up chords):

By Cicely Fox Smith, from SHIP MODELS by Cicely Fox Smith,
published by Conway Maritime Press in 1972. p. 87
from an original Country Life publication of 1951.
Adapted by Charlie Ipcar 8/2/07
Tune: after 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
A-mong the stale odours of hot food and cold,,
------------------------------G-------------C
In a fly-spotted window I there did be-hold;
---------------------------F
A ship in a bottle some sailor had made
------C------------------------------G----------------G7
In his watches be-low, swinging South with the Trade;
--F--------C---------F---------C
A ship in a bottle a-sailing a-way,
----------------Am---------------G--------------C
In flying-fish weather through rainbows of spray –

Chorus:

C---------------------F
A ship in a bottle a-sailing away,
---C-------------------------------G-------------G7
In flying-fish weather through rainbows of spray,
------F----------C------------F-------------C
Over oceans of wonder by headlands a-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)

The major change is getting rid of lines 3 and 4 which distract from the flow of the poem and ending that verse with the lines that begin the chorus.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble