Four lines setting out what different creatures and people love best, from the hart and his high wood to a lady who simply loves her own way. A tidy little rhyme about character.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
The hart he loves the high wood,
The hare she loves the hill;
The Knight he loves his bright sword,
The Lady—loves her will.
About this rhyme
Text matches: hart loves the high wood, hare loves the hill, knight loves his sword, lady loves her will. · No attribution or origin claims made, so nothing to fact-check beyond the text itself.
This rhyme works like a matching game: each creature paired with what it loves best. The hart to the high wood, the hare to the hill, the knight to his sword. Then it turns, and the lady loves nothing but her own way, which is the joke the whole thing was building toward. Good for call and response: say the first half of a line and let a child finish it.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition