The Circus Procession

The Circus Procession 

by Evaleen Stein

Oh, hurry! hurry! here they come,
The band in front with the big bass drum
And blaring bugles, — there they are,
On golden thrones in a golden car,
Tooting and fluting, oh, how grand I
Hi diddle, diddle!
The fife and the fiddle!
Hurrah , hurrah for the circus band!

And the red-plumed horses, oh, see them
prance
And daintily lift their hoofs and dance,
While beautiful ladies with golden curls
Are jingling their bridles of gold and pearls,
And close behind
Come every kind
Of animal cages great and small,
O how I wonder what’s in them all!
Here’s one that’s open and glaring there
Is the shaggiest snow-white polar bear I
Woof! but I wonder what we’d do
If his bars broke loose right now, don't you?
And O dear me!
Just look and see 

That pink-cheeked lady in skirts of gauze
And the great big lion with folded paws!
O me I O my!
I’m glad that I
Am not in that lion’s cage, because
Suppose he'd open his horrible jaws !
— But look ! the clown is coming ! Of course
Facing the tail of a spotted horse
And shouting out things to make folks
laugh,
And grinning up at the tall giraffe
That placidly paces along and looks
Just like giraffes in the picture-books!
And there are the elephants, two and two,
Lumbering on as they always do!
The men who lead them look so small
I wonder the elephants mind at all
As they wag their queer
Long trunks, and peer
Through their beady eyes, — folks say they
know
No end of things, and I’m sure it’s so!
And you never must do a thing that’s bad
Or that possibly might make an elephant
mad,
For he’ll never forgive you, it appears,
And will punish you sure, if it takes him
years !
So do not stare
But take good care
To mind your manners, and always try
To smile politely as they go by!
But the camels don’t care if you laugh at
them
With their bumpy humps like a capital M,
They lurch and sway
And seem to say,
As they wrinkle their noses, long and gray,
“ This swaggering stride is quite the plan,
It’s the way we walked in the caravan!”
And now more cages come rumbling by
With glittering people throned on high;
So many spangles and precious things,
They surely must all be queens and kings!
They look so proud
Above the crowd, 

O my, how fine it must feel to ride

On golden wagons that hide inside

Strange animals caught in cannibal isles

And brought in ships for a million miles!

But hark ! it's near

The end, for hear

That sudden screeching in piercing key!

The steaming, screaming cal-li-o-pe!

Just plain pianos sound terribly tame

Beside this one with the wonderful name,

And wouldn’t you love some day to sit

In a circus wagon and play on it?