There was a little girl

Original Text: 
Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow, Random Memories (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1922): 15. ND 237 L67A3 Robarts Library.
2        Who had a little curl,
3Right in the middle of her forehead.
4        When she was good,
5        She was very good indeed,
6But when she was bad she was horrid.


1] Longfellow's second son Ernest says of this poem: "It was while walking up and down with his second daughter, then a baby in his arms, that my father composed and sang to her the well-known lines .... Many people think this a Mother-Goose rhyme, but this is the true version and history" (15-16). Back to Line
RPO poem Editors: 
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition: 
RPO 2000.