LITTLE BO PEEP

Original Poem

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
And can't tell where to find them;
Leave them alone, and they 'll come home,
Wagging their tails behind them.

Little Bo-peep fell fast asleep,

And dreamt she heard them bleating;

But when she awoke, she found it a joke,

For they were still a-fleeting.

Then up she took her little crook,

Determined for to find them;

She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed,

For they'd left their tails behind them.

It happened one day, as Bo-peep did stray

Into a meadow hard by,

There she espied their tails side by side,

All hung on a tree to dry.

She heaved a sigh and wiped her eye,

And over the hillocks went rambling,

And tried what she could, as a shepherdess should,

To tack each again to its lambkin.

A reference to this rhyme appeared in 1805. Only the first verse appeared at that time. However, there was mention of a game called "Bo Peep" as early as the 16th century. In Act 1 of Shakespeare's King Lear  it is mentioned.

A legend that comes from  a town called Ninfield in England says that  Bo Peep's sheep walked across the beach to disguise smuggler's footprints.