There Was a Little Girl
Mid 19th Century 
USA Lyrics
There was a little girl
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
And when she was good,
She was very, very good,
But when she was bad, she was horrid.
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
And when she was good,
She was very, very good,
But when she was bad, she was horrid.
History and Meaning
"There Was a Little Girl" is a poem written by the celebrated American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about his young daughter. According to his son Ernest, Longfellow composed and sang these lines to his second daughter, Alice Mary, when she was a baby. The poem humorously describes the mischievous side of his toddler daughter, with the famous lines: "When she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid." Written in a rhyming couplet style, the poem reflects a parent's observations of a child's fluctuating temperament. Although many people associate it with Mother Goose rhymes, it was definitively authored by Longfellow, and only later became adopted as a popular nursery rhyme.