Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes 36 – Anonymous · Verses Across
Literature · For Children
Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes 36Little Bo-Peep
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Literature · For Children
Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes 36
Little Bo-Peep
AnonymousEnglish
Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep,
And cannot tell where to find them;
Leave them alone, and they'll come home,
And bring their tails behind them.]
Little Bo-peep fell fast asleep,
And dreamt she heard them bleating;
But when she awoke she found it a joke,
For still they all were fleeting.
Then up she took her little crook,
Determined for to find them;
She found 'em indeed, but it made her heart bleed,
For they'd left their tails behind 'em.
It happened one day, as Bo-peep did stray
Unto a meadow hard by,
There she espied their tails, side by side,
All hung on a tree to dry.
Then she heaved a sigh, and wiped her eye,
And ran o'er hill and dale-o,
And tried what she could, as a shepherdess should,
To tack to each sheep its tail-o.
As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives,
Every wife had seven sacks,
Every sack had seven cats,
Every cat had seven kits.
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,
How many were there going to St. Ives?
Go to bed first, a golden purse;
Go to bed second, a golden pheasant;
Go to bed third, a golden bird.
There was an old woman, and what do you think?
She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink;
Victuals and drink were the chief of her diet,
Yet the plaguey old woman would never be quiet.
She went to the baker's to buy some bread;
And when she came home her husband was dead.
She went to the clerk, to toll the great bell;
And when she came back, her husband was well.
Some little mice sat in a barn to spin,
Pussy came by, and she popped her head in.
"Shall I come in and cut your threads off?"
"Oh, no, kind sir, you will snap our heads off."
There seemed to be no rhyme nor reason to which poems began with
smallcaps, (represented in this text version as ALLCAPS), and which did
not. Without a clear pattern to follow, this was retained as printed.
Page 82, word "a" added to text. Original read (There was jockey) now
reads (There was a jockey)
Page 227, "he" changed to "she" (she fought for her)
