THESE are golden days in Slowville; there is gladness up and down;
For they’re sticking circus posters ’round the little country town.
Flaming sheets of red and yellow on its every barn and fence
Tell of wonders aggregated disregardful of expense.
Tell of wildernesses threaded for the fierce Bigrigmajig;
Tell of jungle-beasts made captive and of marvels small and big,
“In a most stupendous spectacle of splendor and renown,”
Say the flaming circus posters in the little country town.
They have wielded monster brushes from the dewy hours of morn,
They have covered half of Jones’s barn with grandeur heaven-born;
They have pictured fluffy ladies on the backs of dashing steeds,
They have ornamented Slowville with a wealth of daring deeds;
They have left a Ripperumptus on the back of Robbin’s fence,
Captured in the wilds of Africa at marvelous expense;
They’ve a retinue of big-eyed lads as they move up and down
When they put up circus posters in the little country town.
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.
THE HEART OF A CHILD
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!