119. LITTLE BO-peep has lost her sheep, Little Bo-peep fell fast asleep, And dreamt she heard them bleating; But when she awoke, she found it a joke, For still they were all fleeting. Then up she took her little crook, Determin'd for to find them; She found them, indeed, but it made her heart bleed, For they'd left all their tails behind 'em. It happen'd one day, as Bo-peep did stray, There she espy'd their tails side by side, She heav'd a sigh and wip'd her eye, And over the hillocks went stump-o; And tried what she could, as a shepherdess should, To tack again each to its rump-o. 120. ABOUT the bush, Willy, Then to my ten shillings, Add you but a groat, I'll go to Newcastle, And buy a new coat. Five and five shillings, Five and five shillings, Will buy a new gown. Five and five shillings, Will buy a new coat. [The first line of this nursery rhyme is quoted in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Bonduca," Act v. sc. 2. It is probable also that Sir Toby alludes to this song in "Twelfth Night," Act ii. sc. 2, when he says, "Come on; there is sixpence for you; let's have a song." In "Epulario, or the Italian banquet," 1589, is a receipt "to make pies so that the birds may be alive in them, and flie out when it is cut up," a mere device, live birds being introduced after the pie is made. This may be the original subject of the following song.] SING a song of sixpence, Four and twenty blackbirds When the pie was open'd, The birds began to sing; The king was in his counting-house The maid was in the garden, Jenny was so mad, She didn't know what to do; She put her finger in her ear, And crack'd it right in two. |