When the circus came to townWith its coaches and four, and its steeds galore,And a band and a painted clown,Out to the road with a shout we’d flyTo gape at the elephants trudging by,And our hearts beat fast and our hopes ran high,As we followed it up and down;For nought in the air, the sea, or skyCould fill a spot in our youthful eye,When the circus came to town.
So after the show we went,And we got in the way of the men when theyWere rigging the circus tent,And we knew that we stood on holy ground,As we followed an empty van around—And got for ourselves a belting sound,Which a charm to the business lent.But we wagged it from school behind the pound,Till some Jack Pudding our shelter foundAnd word to headquarters sent.
When the circus came to town,We swallowed hot tea with tears of glee,And rushed in a tumult down;We took quite the full of our shilling’s worth,And roared at the dummy’s ponderous girth,Or yelled in a salvo of noisy mirthAt the tricks of the painted clown.Oh, wondrous thoughts in our minds had birth,And we felt that the band was the best on earth,When the circus came to town.
We fondly recalled the scene,Horses that pranced, and eyes entranced,And the smell of the kerosene;The mule, and the monkey, and tall giraffe,The “juggerlin’-man” with his magic staff,The girl who went round with her photograph(And oh, but we thought her a queen!)We started a show on our own behalf,“Performed” on the back of a poddy calf,And sighed for the might-have-been.
Now the circus comes to town,And it rattles along, and a bare-foot throngIs pacing it up and down;And the elephants trudge as they trudged of yore,With the shabby shebangs, and the steeds galore;But the glee of the youngsters who shout and roarAt the tricks of the painted clownIs balm to my soul, and I call encoreTo the frowsy old jokes I’ve heard before,When the circus came to town.