"One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" is a popular 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:...

 and counting-out rhyme. 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 11284.

Lyrics

Common modern versions include:

One, two,

Buckle my shoe;

Three, four,

Knock at the door;

Five, six,

Pick up sticks;

Seven, eight,

Lay them straight:

Nine, ten,

A big fat hen;

Eleven, twelve,

Dig and delve;

Thirteen, fourteen,

Maids a-courting;

Fifteen, sixteen,

Maids in the kitchen;

Seventeen, eighteen,

Maids a-waiting

Nineteen, twenty,

My plate's empty.

Origins and meaning

The rhyme is one of many counting-out rhymes. It was first recorded in Songs for the Nursery, published in London in 1805. This version differed beyond the number twelve, with the lyrics:

Thirteen, fourteen, draw the curtain,

Fifteen sixteen, the maids in the kitchen,

Seventeen, eighteen, she's in waiting,

Nineteen, twenty, my stomach's empty.

A version published five years later in Gammer Gurton's Garland (1810) had the different lines:

Three, four, Lay down lower ...

Eleven twelve, Who will delve...

Fifteen, sixten, Maidsa-kissing...

Nineteen, twenty, My Belly's empty.

According to Henry Bolton, collector of counting rhymes in the 1880s, the rhyme was used in Wrentham, Massachusetts as early as 1780.