Little Boy Blue

Little Boy Blue,
Come blow your horn!
The sheep's in the meadow,
The cow's in the corn.

Where is that boy
Who looks after the sheep?
He’s under the haystack,
Fast asleep.

Illustration of Little Boy Blue sleeping beside a haystack while sheep and cows wander, inspired by the traditional nursery rhyme.

Illustration by Eulalie Osgood Grover (1915 Volland edition).

A 1912 version adds a final stanza:

Will you wake him?
No, not I;
For if I do,
he'll be sure to cry.

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey

One popular speculation links the rhyme to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, a powerful statesman during the reign of King Henry VIII. According to the story, Wolsey’s father was a butcher and cattle dealer, and young Thomas may have tended livestock before rising to power. Because Wolsey was wealthy, influential, and sometimes arrogant, his enemies were eager to mock him — and so some believe Little Boy Blue may have originated as satire.

However, much of Wolsey’s “humble origins” narrative may have been exaggerated or invented by rivals. So while the theory is interesting, it remains unproven.

The Book of Joel

Another interpretation links the rhyme to the Book of Joel in the Bible, which mentions blowing a horn, cattle, and grain. This reading frames the rhyme as a subtle reference to religious imagery rather than a playful farm scene — though this connection is speculative as well.

King Lear

Little Boy Blue drawing A notable literary echo appears in Shakespeare’s King Lear, where we find lines that closely resemble the rhyme:

Let us deal justly.
Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?
Thy sheep be in the corn;
And for one blast of thy minikin mouth,
Thy sheep shall take no harm.
Pur! the cat is gray.

This suggests that the idea of a sleepy shepherd and wandering livestock was already a familiar theme long before the nursery rhyme appeared in print.

Sheet music

Rhyme Summary: