Girls and Boys Come Out to Play

The most common versions of the rhyme are very similar to that collected by James Orchard Halliwell in the mid-nineteenth century: Girls and boys, come out to play, The moon doth shine as bright as day; Leave your supper, and leave your sleep, And come with your playfellows into the street.

[1] Other versions often put boys before girls in the opening line.

The verse may date back to the time when children were expected to work during the daylight hours, and play was reserved for late in the evening.

The first two lines at least appeared in dance books (1708, 1719, 1728), satires (1709, 1725), and a political broadside (1711).

It appeared in the earliest extant collection of nursery rhymes, Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, published in London around 1744.