Nursery Rhyme. LI. Tales.

    There was a man, and he had naught,
        And robbers came to rob him;
    He crept up to the chimney pot,
        And then they thought they had him.

    But he got down on t'other side,
        And then they could not find him;
    He ran fourteen miles in fifteen days,
        And never look'd behind him.

        [The following two stanzas, although they belong to the same piece, are often found separated from each other.]

    Robin and Richard were two pretty men;
    They laid in bed till the clock struck ten;
    Then up starts Robin, and looks at the sky,
    Oh! brother Richard, the sun's very high:

    The bull's in the barn threshing the corn,
    The cock's on the dunghill blowing his horn,
    The cat's at the fire frying of fish,
    The dog's in the pantry breading his dish.

    There was a little man,
    And he had a little gun,
    And he went to the brook,
    And he shot a little rook;
    And he took it home
    To his old wife Joan,
    And told her to make up a fire,
    While he went back,
    To fetch the little drake;
    But when he got there,
    The drake was fled for fear,
    And like an old novice,
    He turn'd back again.

    There was a jolly miller
    Lived on the river Dee,
    He look'd upon his pillow,
    And there he saw a flee.
    Oh! Mr. Flea,
    You have been biting me,
    And you must die:
        So he crack'd his bones
        Upon the stones,
    And there he let him lie.

    A dog and a cock,
    A journey once took,
        They travell'd along till 'twas late;
    The dog he made free
    In the hollow of a tree,
        And the cock on the boughs of it sate.

    The cock nothing knowing,
    In the morn fell a crowing,
        Upon which comes a fox to the tree;
    Says he, I declare,
    Your voice is above,
        All the creatures I ever did see.

    Oh! would you come down
    I the fav'rite might own,
        Said the cock, there's a porter below;
    If you will go in,
    I promise I'll come down.
        So he went - and was worried for it too.

    Little Tommy Tittlemouse
    Lived in a little house;
    He caught fishes
    In other men's ditches.