If All the Seas Were One Sea
If all the seas were one sea,
What a great sea that would be!
And if all the trees were one tree,
What a great tree that would be!
And if all the axes were one axe,
What a great axe that would be!
And if all the men were one man,
What a great man he would be!
And if the great man took the great axe,
And cut down the great tree,
And let it fall into the great sea,
What a splish splash that would be!
This old nursery rhyme sounds like it was dreamed up by a child staring out to sea — wondering just how big the world could get if everything joined into one enormous thing. Versions of it appear in several 18th- and 19th-century collections, and it probably lived as a spoken game before that. The repetitive “if all the…” pattern makes it perfect for chanting, turning a simple thought into something grand, ridiculous, and fun to say aloud.
It’s a celebration of absurdity — the kind only children can pull off without blinking. Everything is bigger, brighter, and far too much, yet it all makes perfect sense in the logic of play. The final “splish splash” feels like laughter turned into sound.
1. A simple retelling
The rhyme imagines the world as one giant sea, one tree, one axe, and one man — ending with the great tree falling into the sea with a huge splash.
2. The characters
Only one imagined figure — the “great man” created by combining all people into one.
3. Setting
A playful imaginary world where everything has been merged into exaggerated, impossible scale.
4. Theme
Fantasy, exaggeration, and the fun of imagining bigger-than-life things.
5. Moral
No moral — the joy lies in the absurd and the rhythm rather than meaning.
