Dickery Dickery Dock
Original Text:
Mother Goose's Melody: A facsimile reproduction of the earliest known edition, ed. W. F. Prideaux (London: A. H. Bullein, 1904): 73. DeLury Collection F, Fisher Rare Book Library. The original is Mother Goose's Melody: or, Sonnets for the Cradle (London: Francis Power, 1791).
2The mouse ran up the clock;
3The clock struck one,
4The mouse ran down,
5Dickery, dickery dock.
Notes
1] Cf. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, ed. Iona and Peter Opie (1951; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), no. 217, pp. 206-07. The Opies' version begins, "Hickory, dickory, dock," and the terms "dimity" and "ziccoty" start the verse elsewhere. Back to Line
Publication Start Year:
1744
Publication Notes:
Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book (1744).
RPO poem Editors:
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition:
RPO 1998.
Rhyme: