Good Night and Good Morning

DESCRIPTION: "A fair little girl sat under a tree, Sewing as long as her eyes could see"; when it is too dark, she says, "Dear work, goodnight, goodnight." As rooks fly to their night perches, she says, "Little black things, goodnight, goodnight"
AUTHOR: Richard Monkton Milnes, Lord Houghton (1809-1885) (source: Fowke's notes in Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood)
EARLIEST DATE: 1859 (according to Fowke)
KEYWORDS: work bird | sewing night rooks
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 57, "A fair little girl sat under a tree" (1 text)
Peirce-KeepTheKettleBoiling, p. 68, "(A fair little girl sat under a tree)" (1 text)
Roud #23016
NOTES [85 words]: Alice Kane remembered only two verses of the six verses of this, and Maggi Kerr Peirce twelve lines, but it doesn't get any less nauseating; the last two verses read:
The tall pink foxglove bowed his head;
The violets curtsied and went to bed;
And good little Lucy tied up her hair,
And said, on her knees, her favorite prayer.
And while on her pillow she softly lay,
She knew nothing more till again it was day;
And all things said to the beautiful sun,
"Good morning, good morning! our work is begun." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: KSUC057B

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