"Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is a nursery rhyme, and a popular children's song, often sung as a round. It can also be an 'action' nursery rhyme where singers sit opposite one another and 'row' forwards and backwards with joined hands. The tune is credited to Eliphalet Oram Lyte in the publication The Franklin Square Song Collection (1881, New York), which also indicates that he adapted the lyric:

Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.

Additional verses

Row, row, row the boat

Gently down the stream

If you see a crocodile

Don't forget to scream

Row, row, row the boat

Gently down the river

If you see a polar bear

Don't forget to shiver

Row, row, row the boat

Gently to the shore

If you see a lion

Don't forget to roar

Row, row, row the boat

Gently in the bath

If you see a spider

Don't forget to laugh

Row, row, row the boat

Gently as can be

'Cause if you're not careful

You'll fall into the sea!

In popular culture

It was sung by Captain Kirk and Leonard McCoy (to the bemusement of Spock) at the beginning of The Final Frontier.

It appears also in film 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' sung by Baby Joel.

Nursery rhymes