Wee Willie Winkie runs the town in his nightgown, checking every child is in bed by eight o'clock. A proper bedtime classic, and one of the most enduring lullaby-adjacent rhymes in the language.
Spoken softly. A tiptoe rhyme for winding down.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Upstairs and downstairs, in his nightgown;
Rapping at the window, crying through the lock,
"Are the children in their beds? Now it's eight o'clock."
About this rhyme
Written by William Miller, 1841 · Roud 13711
Most nursery rhymes have no author. This one does. A Glasgow cabinet-maker called William Miller wrote it in Scots, and it first appeared in print in 1841. The English wording came later and softened it a little. Willie himself is bedtime turned into a small town official. He runs through the streets in his nightgown, rapping at windows, checking every child is where it should be. Eight o'clock means eight o'clock.
Knock on something solid at rapping at the window. Most children will ask for the knock again. It works best at the very end of the day, because that is what it is about: Willie doing the rounds to check every child is finally in bed. Let him find yours already there.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition