IN A MERRY MOOD

Laugh and the world laughs with you,

Weep and you weep alone;

For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth,

But has trouble enough of its own.

- ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

THE CIRCUS-DAY PARADE

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

H! THE Circus-Day Parade! How the bugles played and played !

And how the glossy horses tossed their flossy manes

and neighed,

SAs the rattle and the rime of the tenor drummer's

time

Filled all the hungry hearts of us with melody sublime!

How the grand band wagon shone with a splendor all

its own,

1. And glittered with a glory that our dreams had never known!

And how the boys behind, high and low of every kind, Marched in unconscious capture, with a rapture undefined!

15 How the horsemen, two and two, with their plumes of white and blue,

20

And crimson, gold and purple, nodding by at me and

you,

Waved the banners that they bore, as the knights in

days of yore,

Till our glad eyes gleamed and glistened like the spangles that they wore!

How the graceless-graceful stride of the elephant was eyed,

And the capers of the little horse that cantered at his

side!

How the shambling camels, tame to the plaudits of s their fame,

With listless eyes came silent, masticating as they came.

How the cages jolted past, with each wagon battened fast,

And the mystery within it only hinted of at last

From the little grated square in the rear, and nosing

there

ΤΟ

And, last of all, the Clown, making mirth for all the Is

town,

With his lips curved ever upward and his eyebrows

ever down,

And his chief attention paid to the little mule that

played

A tattoo on the dashboard with his heels, in the parade.

20

Oh! the Circus-Day Parade! How the bugles played and played!

And how the glossy horses tossed their flossy manes

and neighed,

s As the rattle and the rime of the tenor drummer's time Filled all the hungry hearts of us with melody sublime!

1. How does this description fit the circus parades you have seen? What circuses can you name? What is the funniest thing in a circus parade? What did Riley think was the funniest?

2. James Whitcomb Riley (1853-1916) is a well-known American poet. He loved children and many of his poems are about children.

(From the Biographical Edition of the Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, copyright, 1913. Used by special permission of the Publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.)

THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT BY JOHN G. SAXE

T WAS six men of Indostan,

IT WAS six of Indosta,

To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the elephant,