origin of rain, rain, go away

It was raining in London. Go figure. We got the entire London experience.

Anyway, I bought a poncho. On it were these familiar lyrics (though somewhat different than I remember):

Rain rain go away,
come again another day;
little Johnny wants to play,
Rain rain go to Spain,
never show your face again.

On the back it said, "The origin of the lyrics are said to date back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), one of the English Tudor monarchs."

Who knew?

Amazing what you can learn from a £1 poncho.