Here Comes an Old Soldier from Botany Bay, commonly known as Here Comes an Old Soldier or just Old Soldier, is a nursery rhyme and children's game found in Australia, the United States, and the British Isles. The game and rhyme date to at least the late nineteenth century. [1]
Here comes an old soldier from Botany Bay,
Have you got anything to give him to-day?
Mentions of children's games in the late 19th century describe it as a call and response game where others take turns to respond to the singer, with a prohibition of predetermined taboo words, typically yes, no, black, white, grey and sometimes other colours. [1] The child playing the soldier may beg items of clothing and then ask what colours they are, or otherwise enter into a conversation in the hope that the child questioned will forget what has been agreed, in which case they must pay a forfeit [1] or in some versions take on the role of the soldier. [2] [3]
G. K. Chesterton wrote of the poem as a "beggars' rhyme" during his childhood in late nineteenth-century London, and quoted the words as thus:
Here comes a poor soldier from Botany Bay:
What have you got to give him to-day? [4]
Various other games incorporating the rhyme emerged in the twentieth century, most local adaptations that replaced the "old soldier from Botany Bay" with an "old woman from Botany Bay." [5]
In another version of the game, the player responding must also remember and correctly name all previous items given to the old soldier, before adding a new one to the list in their response.[ citation needed ] This is similar to the game of "I packed my bag".