THE BOY AND THE SHEEP.
“Lazy sheep, pray tell me why
In the pleasant field you lie,
Eating grass and daisies white,
From the morning till the night:
Everything can something do;
But what kind of use are you?”
“Nay, my little master, nay;
Do not serve me so, I pray!
Don’t you see the wool that grows
On my back to make you clothes?
Cold, ah, very cold you’d be,
If you had not wool from me.
“True, it seems a pleasant thing
Nipping daisies in the spring;
But what chilly nights I pass
On the cold and dewy grass,
Or pick my scanty dinner where
All the ground is brown and bare!
“Then the farmer comes at last,
When the merry spring is past;
Cuts my wooly fleece away,
For your coat in wintry day.
Little master, this is why
In the pleasant fields I lie.”
—Ann Taylor.
There Was an Old Woman.
There was an old woman she lived in a shoe,
She had so many children she didn’t know what to do;
She gave them some broth without any bread;
She whipped them all soundly, and put them to bed.
Oh, the Little Rusty, Dusty, Rusty Miller.
Oh, the little rusty, dusty, rusty miller!
I’ll not change my wife for either gold or siller.
Four-and-Twenty Tailors.
Four-and-twenty tailors went to kill a snail,
The best man among them durst not touch her tail;
She put out her horns like a little Kyloe cow—
Run, tailors, run, or she’ll kill you all e’en now.
When I Was a Little Girl.
When I was a little girl, I washed my mammy’s dishes;
Now I am a great girl, I roll in golden riches.
Three Little Kittens.
Three little kittens lost their mittens,
And they began to cry:
“O mother dear we very much fear
That we have lost our mittens.”
“Lost your mittens, you naughty kittens!
Then you shall have no pie.”
“Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow,
And we can have no pie,
Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow!”
Little Tommy Tucker.
Little Tommy Tucker
Sings for his supper;
What shall he eat?
White bread and butter,
How shall he cut it
Without e’er a knife?
How will he be married
Without e’er a wife?