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

Little Bo-Peep fell fast asleep,
And dreamt she heard them bleating;
And when she awoke, she found it a joke,
For still they were all 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 all 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 went over hill and dale, oh;
And tried what she could, as a shepherdess should,
To tack to each sheep its tail, oh!