nursery rhymes from china

british library flickr (PD)

1900:  Isaac Taylor Headland, an American missionary and academic living and working in Beijing, takes some time from his post as a science professor to translate some traditional Chinese nursery rhymes.  Here's a few.
*
If you steal a needle
Or steal a thread,
A pimple will grow
Upon your head;
If you steal a dog
Or steal a cat,
A pimple will grow
Beneath your hat.
*
We keep a dog to watch the house,
A pig is useful, too;
We keep a cat to catch a mouse,
But what can we do
With a girl like you?

*

The thieving old magpie
has taken our food,
The chicken eats millet as if it
were good,
The faithful old watch-dog looks
after the house,
And the cat has come over to
catch us a mouse.

*

Yellow dog, yellow dog,

You stay and watch,

While I gather roses 

In the south rose-patch.

- from Headland, I. Taylor. (1900). Chinese Mother Goose rhymes. New York: Fleming H. Revell company. Passim.