Boys and Girls Come out to Play

Boys and Girls Come out to Play

Original Text
Mother Goose's Melody: A facsimile reproduction of the earliest known edition, ed. W. F. Prideaux (London: A. H. Bullein, 1904): 66-67. DeLury Collection F, Fisher Rare Book Library. The original is Mother Goose's Melody: or, Sonnets for the Cradle (London: Francis Power, 1791).
2The moon does shine as bright as day;
3Come with a hoop, and come with a call,
4Come with a good will or not at all.
5Loose your supper, and loose your sleep,
6Come to your playfellows in the street;
7Up the ladder and down the wall.
8A halfpenny loaf will serve us all.
9But when the loaf is gone, what will you do?

Notes

1] Cf. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, ed. Iona and Peter Opie (1951; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), no. 75, pp. 99-100. Back to Line
10] The last two words and the dash are missing and supplied from the edition of Isaiah Thomas (Worcester, Mass., ca. 1785). Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1708
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Form