Mother Goose

As I Was Going Up Primrose Hill

From The Classic Book of Nursery Rhymes. Treasure Press, 1986. Originally published by George G. Harrap (1920) as Mother Goose Rhymes.

As I was going up Primrose Hill,
Primrose Hill was dirty;
There I met a pretty Miss,
And she dropped me a curtsey.
Little Miss, pretty Miss,
Blessings light upon you;
If I had a half-a-crown a day,
I'd spend it all upon you.

The poem also appears in Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, arr. Logan Marshall (John C. Winston Co., Philadelphia and Chicago, 1917). Strictly speaking it should be attributed to Anonymous: there is no consensus as to who Mother Goose was, or whether she ever existed. The first printed edition bearing the name was Mother Goose's Melodies, or Sonnets for the Cradle, published in London in 1780 and described as 'a compilation of traditional English nonsense songs and rhymes.' There have been many different versions since then, with new rhymes added.

In some editions 'Primrose Hill' is changed to 'Pippen Hill'; no-one knows why, or whether such a place exists.