Recited by parents across the world to their little girls, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's well known poem 'There was a little girl who had a little curl' was written in the 19th century.

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During his lifetime Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of the most celebrated poets in the world, and particularly famous for The Song of Hiawatha, including Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, which was set to music by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

'There was a little girl who had a little curl' lyrics

There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

One day she went upstairs,
When her parents, unawares,
In the kitchen were occupied with meals,
And she stood upon her head
In her little trundle-bed,
And then began hooraying with her heels.

Her mother heard the noise,
And she thought it was the boys
A-playing at a combat in the attic;
But when she climbed the stair,
And found Jemima there,
She took and she did spank her most emphatic.

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