The One-Ring Show

The street parade was gorgeous and the show was mighty fine
--Them fellers on the trick trapeze was corkers 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 rubberneckin''round,
A-lookin' here and gawpin' there, why, gracious, 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 circus 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 dizzied rout.
And life that's lived at three ring pace I fear will only seem
A useless sort of patchwork thing--a mixedup 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.