Oh! the multicolored marvels done in wonder-rousing haste With a broad red barn for background and no means but brush and paste. “Hi, there, Jimmy! See the monkeys!” All the air is shrill with cries As the likenesses of wild beasts are upreared in gorgeous dyes; There’s the fierce Ornithorinktus and the dreadful Whatisnot, The blood-sweating Crinklawoozum and the awful Bingleswat. Tent and sideshow, flag and streamer, elephant, parade, and clown-- Oh! they’re sticking circus posters ’round the little country town.
These are sleepless nights in Slowville; sleepless nights and anxious days; There’s a hoarding of stray pennies got in half a hundred ways; There are lads in wonder raptured; open-mouthed, with bulging eyes, Where the marvelous menageries from gorgeous posters rise; Oh! there’s glory, glory, glory in the chariots arrayed, There’s rapture in the promise of the splendorous parade; And new life has come to Slowville and is surging up and down Since they put up circus posters in the little country town.
Give me thy happy heart, Oh little child! Where love springs like the sweetest flower, wild, From all its virgin soil, and radiantly Reflects its fresh, unsullied purity.
Give me thy heart, that knows not heat or hate, Nor passion thrills, nor grief makes desolate, When love, lone, reigned, and Life but smiled and smiled, Give me thy spotless heart, Oh little child!
Give me thine artless tongue that to deceive Knows not; but lisps to laugh and wakes to weave In whispered words diviner melody Of love than speaks in grandest symphony.
Give me thine eyes that see but happiness, Nor aught of else in all the hours that bless Thy childhood time, nor any graver ray Than the glad sunshine of an endless day.
Would we could cleanse our hearts and make them young, As when were sweeter chimes of childhood rung From them, and when were flowers springing wild From the untrampled soil, Oh little child!
That is your father, dear Just going out the door; Oh, he’s been living here For seven years or more! In business he’s so deep He has no time to fret With little girls, but keep Up hope--we’ll meet him yet!
That is your mother, dear, Just getting in the car, She knows that you are here And also who you are! But what with clubs to meet And bridge to play, you see, With hours so short and fleet She’s turned you o’er to me.