Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes
Beatrix Potter loved the countryside and she spent much of
her otherwise conventional Victorian childhood drawing and studying animals. Her passion for the
natural world lay behind the creation of her famous series of little books. A particular source of
inspiration was the English Lake District where she lived for the last thirty years of her life as a
farmer and land conservationist, working with the National Trust.
Cecily Parsley’s Nursery Rhymes, published in 1922, is a sequel to Beatrix Potter’s first rhyme collection Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes. Like the previous book it contains material she had produced and collected over a period of many years. The Cecily Parsley sequence of illustrations, for example, were first made into a little booklet twenty-five years earlier in 1897.
www.peterrabbit.com
FOR
LITTLE PETER
IN
NEW ZEALAND
Cecily Parsley
lived in a pen,
And brewed good ale
for gentlemen;
Gentlemen
came every day,
Till Cecily Parsley
ran away.
Goosey,
goosey, gander,
Whither will you wander?
Upstairs and downstairs,
And in my lady’s chamber!
This pig went to market;
This pig stayed at home;
This pig had a bit of meat;
And this pig had none;
This little pig cried
Wee! wee! wee!
I can’t find my way home.
Pussy-cat sits by the fire;
How should she be fair?
In walks the little dog,
Says “Pussy! are you there?”
“How do you do, Mistress Pussy?
Mistress Pussy, how do you do?”
“I thank you kindly, little dog,
I fare as well as you!”
Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run!
They all run after the farmer’s wife,
And she cut off their tails
with a carving knife,
Did ever you see such a thing
in your life
As three blind mice!
B
ow, wow, wow!
Whose dog art thou?
“I’m little Tom Tinker’s dog,
Bow, wow, wow!”
We have a little garden,
A garden of our own,
And every day we water there
The seeds that we have sown.
We love our little garden,
And tend it with such care,
You will not find a faded leaf
Or blighted blossom there.
Ninny Nanny Netticoat,
In a white petticoat,
With a red nose —
The longer she stands,
The shorter she grows.
The End
FREDERICK WARNE
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand,
London WC2R
0RL, England
Website: www.peterrabbit.com
First published by Frederick Warne 1922
This electronic edition first published 2010
New reproductions copyright ©Frederick Warne & Co., 2002
Original copyright in text and illustrations ©Frederick Warne & Co., 1922
Frederick Warne & Co. is the owner of all rights, copyrights and trademarks in the Beatrix
Potter character names and illustrations.
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-0-72-326582-5
.
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