A small, wistful verse about a toy horse made of pea-straw and hay, sold on for a copper groat. Simple rhymes and clear images make it easy to picture and easy to repeat.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
I had a little hobby-horse,
And it was dapple gray;
Its head was made of pea-straw,
Its tail was made of hay.
I sold it to an old woman
For a copper groat;
And I'll not sing my song again
Without another coat.
About this rhyme
Text: dapple grey, head of pea-straw, tail of hay, sold to an old woman for a copper groat. · Speaker won't sing the song again without a new coat.
A hobby-horse is a toy, a stick with a horse's head on top. This one is dapple grey, its head made of pea-straw, its tail of hay. The rhyme follows it from playroom to market, sold to an old woman for a copper coin, then a flat refusal to sing again without a new coat to show for it. Gallop on the words and stop dead at 'sold it.'
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition