A small bird hops close, is greeted politely, then flies off before the introduction is even finished. A neat little poem about the ordinary disappointment of trying to make friends with a bird.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
Once I saw a little bird
Come hop, hop, hop;
So I cried, "Little bird,
Will you stop, stop, stop?"
And was going to the window
To say, "How do you do?"
But he shook his little tail,
And far away he flew.
About this rhyme
Published by Walter Crane in his 1874 picture alphabet book An Alphabet of Old Friends, as the entry for the letter 'O'. · Later reprinted in other Victorian and Edwardian collections, supporting 'stayed popular ever since'.
A small visiting-and-vanishing story in eight lines: a bird hops close, gets a greeting, and flies off before it can answer. It was published by the illustrator Walter Crane in 1874, in a picture alphabet book, and has stayed popular ever since. Hop your fingers along the table on "hop, hop, hop", then fly them away on the last line.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition