Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep,
And cannot tell where to find ’em;
Leave them alone, and they’ll come home,
And bring their tails behind ’em.

Little Bo-peep fell fast asleep,
And dreamt she heard them bleating;
When she awoke, she found it a joke,
For still they all were fleeting.

Then up she took her little crook,
Determin’d for to find them;
She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed,
For they’d left their tails behind them.

It happen’d one day, as Bo-peep did stray
Unto 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 she raced;
And tried what she could, as a shepherdess should,
That each tail should be properly placed.