A child feeds a little toy moppet corn and hay, kept snug in a pocket, only for a passing beggar to swear it away. Short and strange in the way old rhymes often are, with a plaintive last line worth a small sigh.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
I had a little moppet,
I put it in my pocket,
And fed it with corn and hay.
There came a proud beggar.
And swore he should have her;
And stole my little moppet away.
About this rhyme
'Moppet' is a genuine historical word for a rag doll. · Text matches: fed corn and hay, a proud beggar swore he should have her and stole her away.
A moppet is a soft rag doll, tucked into a pocket here and fed like a pet, corn and hay for a thing with no mouth. Then a beggar simply takes it, 'swore he should have her,' and that's that; no chase, no rescue. It's a small lesson in loss, over almost as soon as it starts.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition