THE ONE-RING SHOW
The street parade was gorgeous and the show
was mighty fine
—Them fellers on the trick trapeze was cork-
ers in their line,
And all the lady riders was as pretty as they’re
made,
And kept the climate fully up to ninety in the
shade.
The chaps that did the tumbling acts and every
funny clown
Was just as slick an article as ever came to
town.
I’ve got to tell yon, neighbor, that it all was up
in G,
Including all the things I saw and what I
didn’t see.
But though I did a master sight of rubber-
neckin’ ’round,
A-lookin’ here and gawpin’ there, why, gra-
cious, me, I found
From what the folks have told me since, I
missed the finest things,
—I hadn’t eyes and neck enough for all them
three big rings.
And honest, if 1 had my choice, I’d good deal
ruther go
To just a good, old-fashioned sort of hayseed,
one-ring show.
The people used to gather when Van Amburgh
came to town
With a lion and an elephant, a camel and a
clown.
There wasn’t “miles of splendor,” as the cir-
cus programs say,
But folks got up at daylight, drove in early in
the day;
And they perched along the fences while the
dozen carts or so
Came trailin’ through the village with the old
Van Amburgh show.
It wasn’t just “stupendous,” but the people
didn’t jeer
And say it wasn’t up to what the circus was
last year!
O, no, they crunched their peanuts and they
took things as they’d come,
And heard a lot of music in the rump-rump of
the drum.
For things, you know, seemed fresher in the
days when we were young,
And tinsel passed for solid stuff when lady
riders sprung
Through papered hoops, or danced and frisked
upon their charger’s rump
And vaulters spun to dizzy heights with one
jer-oosly jump.
They did those ding-does master fine some
twenty years ago
And you never missed a wiggle at a one-ring
show.
I won’t pick flaws with modern ways of doing
all these things,
For folks have got to living on the gauge of
three big rings.
But while the whirl is going on, it seems, my
friend, to me
That half of what goes past your nose is things
that you don’t see.
And when the angel cries, “All done,” and
when the lights go out,
You’ll jostle to the dark Beyond amidst a diz-
zied rout.
And life that’s lived at three ring pace I fear
will only seem
A useless sort of patchwork thing—a mixed-
up fruitless dream.
Why wasn’t “father’s way” the best? Though
there was less array,
Though men had less of creeds and cults than
what they have to-day,
The old folks then from Life’s great tent went
slowly thronging out
With calm, well-ordered years behind, unvexed
by care or doubt.
And though in old Van Amburgh’s days the
thing moved rather slow,
You didn’t sprain your moral neck in looking
at Life’s Show.