"Little Boy Blue" is a popular English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 nursery rhyme

Nursery rhyme

The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...

, often used in popular culture. It has a Roud Folk Song Index

Roud Folk Song Index

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...

 number of 11318.

Lyrics

The most common version of the rhyme is:

Little Boy Blue,

Come blow your horn,

The sheep's in the meadow,

The cow's in the corn;

Where is that boy

Who looks after the sheep?

Under the haystack

Fast asleep.

Will you wake him?

Oh no, not I,

For if I do

He will surely cry.

Some versions do not include the last two lines.
Older versions include:

Little Boy Blue,

Come blow your horn,

The sheep's in the meadow,

The cow's in the corn;

But where is the boy

Who looks after the sheep?

He's under a haycock,

Fast asleep.

Will you wake him?

No, not I,

For if I do,

He's sure to cry.

Origins and meaning

The earliest printed version of the rhyme is in Tommy Thumb's Little Song Book (c. 1744), but the rhyme may be much older. It may be alluded to in Shakespeare's King Lear

King Lear

King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...

 (III, vi) when Edgar, masquerading as Mad Tom, says:

Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepheard?

Thy sheepe be in the corne;

And for one blast of thy minikin mouth

Thy sheepe shall take no harme.

It has been argued that Little Boy Blue was intended to represent Cardinal Wolsey, who was the son of an Ipswich butcher, who may have acted as a hayward

Hayward

Hayward was originally Hayward , an officer of a township in charge of fences and enclosures. It may also refer to:-People with surname Hayward:*Abraham Hayward , English writer and essayist*Adam Hayward, American football player...

to his father's livestock, but there is no corroborative evidence to support this assertion.