Nursery rhymes, English; Oral tradition -- England
CCCCXCII.
O rare Harry Parry,
When will you marry?
When apples and pears are ripe.
I'll come to your wedding,
Without any bidding,
And dance and sing all the night.
CCCCXCIII.
Blue eye beauty,
Grey eye greedy,
Black eye blackie,
Brown eye brownie.
CCCCXCIV.
Curly locks! curly locks! wilt thou be mine?
Thou shalt not wash dishes, nor yet feed the swine;
But sit on a cushion and sow a fine seam,
And feed upon strawberries, sugar, and cream!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
FIFTEENTH CLASS.
NATURAL HISTORY.
CCCCXCV.
The cuckoo's a fine bird,
He sings as he flies;
He brings us good tidings,
He tells us no lies.
He sucks little birds' eggs,
To make his voice clear;
And when he sings "cuckoo!"
The summer is near.
CCCCXCVI. [A provincial version of the same.]
The cuckoo's a vine bird,
A zengs as a vlies;
A brengs us good tidins,
And tells us no lies;
A zucks th' smael birds' eggs,
To make his voice clear;
And the mwore a cries "cuckoo!"
The zummer draws near.
CCCCXCVII.
I had a little dog, and his name was Blue Bell,
I gave him some work, and he did it very well;
I sent him up stairs to pick up a pin,
He stepped in the coal-scuttle up to the chin;
I sent him to the garden to pick some sage,
He tumbled down and fell in a rage;
I sent him to the cellar to draw a pot of beer,
He came up again and said there was none there.
CCCCXCVIII.
The cat sat asleep by the side of the fire,
The mistress snored loud as a pig:
Jack took up his fiddle, by Jenny's desire,
And struck up a bit of a jig.
CCCCXCIX.
I had a little hobby-horse, and it was well shod,
It carried me to the mill-door, trod, trod, trod;
When I got there I gave a great shout,
Down came the hobby-horse, and I cried out.
Fie upon the miller, he was a great beast,
He would not come to my house, I made a little feast,
I had but little, but I would give him some,
For playing of his bag-pipes and beating his drum.
D.
Pit, Pat, well-a-day,
Little Robin flew away;
Where can little Robin be?
Gone into the cherry tree.
DI.
Little Poll Parrot
Sat in his garret,
Eating toast and tea;
A little brown mouse,
Jumped into the house,
And stole it all away.
DII.
[The snail scoops out hollows, little rotund chambers, in
limestone, for its residence. This habit of the animal is so
important in its effects, as to have attracted the attention
of geologists, and Dr. Buckland alluded to it at the meeting
of the British Association in 1841. See Chambers' 'Popular
Rhymes,' p. 43. The following rhyme is a boy's invocation to
the snail to come out of such holes.]
Snail, snail, come out of your hole,
Or else I will beat you as black as a coal.
DIII.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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