Notes

Here's a variation of this rhyme from The Nursery Rhyme Book:

THE man in the moon,
Came tumbling down,
And ask'd his way to Norwich,
He went by the south,
And burnt his mouth
With supping cold pease-porridge.

You can find almost the same rhyme with the first two and last two lines reversed under the name " The Man of the South He Burnt His Mouth".

Here's the version from The Real Mother Goose (1916):

The Man in the Moon came tumbling down,
And asked the way to Norwich;
He went by the south, and burnt his mouth
With eating cold pease porridge.

Here's a slightly different version from The Little Mother Goose (1912), illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith:

The man in the moon
Came tumbling down,
And asked the way to Norwich.
He went by the South,
And he burnt his mouth,
With eating cold pease porridge.

Here's another old rhyme about the man in the moon from Holton-Curry Readers, Volume 2 (1914):

The Man in the Moon as he sails the sky,
Is a very remarkable skipper;
But he made a mistake when he tried to take
A drink of milk from the Dipper.
He dipped it into the Milky Way,
And slowly and carefully filled it;
The Big Bear growled, and the Little Bear howled,
And scared him so that he spilled it!

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Recording from Librivox's "Mother Goose's Party".

Thanks and Acknowledgements

This rhyme can be found in The Only True Mother Goose Melodies (published and copyrighted in Boston in 1833 by Munroe & Francis) as can the last illustration. The 1st illustration is from The Nursery Rhyme Book, edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke (1897). The 2nd illustration is from The Real Mother Goose (1916), illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright. 3rd illustration from The Mother Goose; Containing All The Melodies The Old Lady Ever Wrote, edited by Dame Goslin (1850), with some graphical editing by Lisa Yannucci.

The 4th illustration is from The Big Book of Nursery Rhymes (circa 1920) edited by Walter Jerrold (1865 – 1929) and illustrated by Charles Robinson.