A sweetheart's rhyme for a sailor gone to sea, remembered by his silver buckles and yellow hair. Its steady, singable tune has carried it through generations as both a nursery rhyme and a folk song.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
Bobby Shaftoe's gone to sea,
With silver buckles on his knee:
He'll come back and marry me,
Pretty Bobby Shaftoe!
Bobby Shaftoe's fat and fair,
Combing down his yellow hair;
He's my love for evermore,
Pretty Bobby Shaftoe.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition