Nature

Ride a Cock Horse

by Anonymous Chinese nursery rhymes traditional (collected in Peking, 1890s)

Translated by Isaac Taylor Headland (1900) · From Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes (1900)

Nature

Up you go,
Down you see,
Granny's come
To pour the tea;
The tea is sweet,
The wine is too;
There are eighteen camels
With clothes for you,
The clothes are heavy,
And the dragon-fly
Has spurted water
On your ankle-tie.
Sister, sister,
Stop your fuss,
To-morrow the cart
Will come for us;
What cart, you ask,
The cart, of course,
With large, red wheels,
And a big, white horse;
And in it a beautiful girl, I note,
With a squirrel cloak and an otter coat,
Her betel-nut bag is a needle-worked charm,
And the stem of her pipe is as long as your arm.

MLA

Anonymous Chinese nursery rhymes. “Ride a Cock Horse.” Translated by Isaac Taylor Headland. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-chinese-nursery/75/.

Chicago

Anonymous Chinese nursery rhymes. “Ride a Cock Horse.” Translated by Isaac Taylor Headland. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-chinese-nursery/75/.

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