"Little Poll Parrot" is an English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 nursery rhyme

Nursery rhyme

The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...

. It has a Roud Folk Song Index

Roud Folk Song Index

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...

 number of 20178.

Lyrics

Like Little Miss Muffet

Little Miss Muffet

"Little Miss Muffet" is a nursery rhyme, one of the most commonly printed in the mid-twentieth century. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 20605.-Lyrics:-Alternative Lyrics:...

 and Little Jack Horner

Little Jack Horner

"Little Jack Horner" is a popular English language nursery rhyme. It has the Roud Folk Song Index number of 13027.-Lyrics:The most common modern lyrics are:Little Jack HornerSat in the corner,Eating a Christmas pie;He put in his thumb,...

 the verse is an example of a nursery rhyme that contains six dactylic

Dactyl (poetry)

A dactyl is a foot in meter in poetry. In quantitative verse, such as Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight...

 lines. The most common modern version of the lyrics is:

Little Poll Parrot

Sat in his garret

Eating toast and tea;

A little brown mouse

Jumped into the house,

And stole it all away.

Origins

It has been argued that the rhyme originates in the seventeenth century. The earliest printed version was in a collection by James Orchard Halliwell in the 1840s.