Lil' Shelf
Cover of To Babylon

To Babylon

Traditional

ages 0 to 2nursery rhymesread aloudabout 17 seconds aloud

One of the best-loved travel rhymes in the Mother Goose collection, asking how far it is to a fabled city and promising you can get there and back by candlelight if your heels are nimble. Its question-and-answer shape works well read as two voices.

From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.

How many miles is it to Babylon?—
    Threescore miles and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?—
    Yes, and back again.
If your heels are nimble and light,
You may get there by candle-light.

Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition

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