Chapter 5 NURSERY HEROES AND HEROINES

Bobby Shaftoe's gone to sea,

Silver buckles on his knee;

He'll come back and marry me,

Pretty Bobby Shaftoe.

Bobby Shaftoe's fat and fair,

Combing down his yellow hair;

He's my love for evermair,

Pretty Bobby Shaftoe.

Tom, he was a piper's son,

He learned to play when he was young,

And all the tune that he could play

Was, "Over the hills and far away,"

Over the hills, and a great way off,

The wind will blow my top-knot off.

Now, Tom with his pipe made such a noise

That he well pleased both the girls and boys,

And they always stopped to hear him play

"Over the hills and far away."

Jack Horner

Jack Horner was a pretty lad,

Near London he did dwell;

His father's heart he made full glad,

His mother loved him well.

While little Jack was sweet and young,

If he by chance should cry,

His mother pretty sonnets sung,

With a lul-la-lul-la-by,

With such a dainty curious tone,

As Jack sat on her knee,

That soon, ere he could go alone,

He sang as well as she.

A pretty boy of curious wit,

All people spoke his praise,

And in the corner he would sit

In Christmas holidays.

When friends they did together meet,

To pass away the time-

Why, little Jack, be sure, would eat

His Christmas pie in rhyme.

He said, "Jack Horner, in the corner,

Eats good Christmas pie,

And with his thumbs pulls out the plums,

And says, 'Good boy am I!'"

Little Tom Tucker

Sings for his supper;

What shall he eat?

White bread and butter.

How shall he cut it

Without e'er a knife?

How shall he be married

Without e'er a wife?

Simple Simon met a pieman,

Going to the fair;

Says Simple Simon to the pieman,

"Let me taste your ware."

Says the pieman to Simple Simon,

"Show me first your penny."

Says Simple Simon to the pieman,

"Indeed I have not any."

Simple Simon went a-fishing

For to catch a whale;

But all the water he could find

Was in his mother's pail!

Jack and Jill went up the hill,

To fetch a pail of water;

Jack fell down, and broke his crown,

And Jill came tumbling after.

Up Jack got and home did trot

As fast as he could caper;

Went to bed to mend his head

With vinegar and brown paper.

Jill came in and she did grin,

To see his paper plaster.

Mother, vexed, did whip her next,

For causing Jack's disaster.

Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,

The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn.

Where's the boy that looks after the sheep?

He's under the haycock, fast asleep.

Little Miss Muffet,

She sat on a tuffet,

Eating of curds and whey;

There came a great spider,

And sat down beside her,

Which frightened Miss Muffet away.

Lucy Locket lost her pocket,

Kitty Fisher found it;

But never a penny was there in't

Except the binding round it.

My maid Mary

She minds her dairy,

While I go a-hoeing and mowing each morn.

Merrily run the reel

And the little spinning-wheel

While I am singing and mowing my corn.

Bessy Bell and Mary Gray,

They were two bonny lasses:

They built their house upon the lea,

And covered it with rushes.

Bessy kept the garden gate,

And Mary kept the pantry;

Bessy always had to wait,

While Mary lived in plenty.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With cockle-shells and silver bells

And pretty girls all of a-row.

Curly Locks! Curly Locks! wilt thou be mine?

Thou shalt not wash dishes, nor yet feed the swine,

But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,

And feast upon strawberries, sugar, and cream!

Old King Cole

Was a merry old soul,

And a merry old soul was he;

He called for his pipe,

And he called for his bowl,

And he called for his fiddlers three.

Every fiddler he had a fine fiddle,

And a very fine fiddle had he;

"Twee tweedle dee, tweedle dee," went the fiddlers.

Oh, there's none so rare,

As can compare

With King Cole and his fiddlers three.

There was an old woman went up in a basket

Seventy times as high as the moon;

And where she was going, I could not but ask it,

For under her arm she carried a broom.

"Old woman, old woman, old woman," said I,

"Whither, O whither, O whither so high?"

"I'm sweeping the cobwebs off the sky!"

"Shall I go with thee?" "Ay, by and by."

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