Classic Poem

To little city boys
Who never see
The purpling bud, the greening sod,
The fettered brook set free
To dance,
Who never hear
The happy hymns, the tuneful trills
Of buoyant birds on slender boughs
At dawn,
There is another, surer sign
Of spring.
Up drab and treeless avenues
Come lumbering platoons
Of elephants.
Gilt cages glitter in the sun,
Wherein the snarling beasts
Of cave and jungle
Leer.
The shrill voice
Of a calliope
Shrieks wildly
The glad tidings
That the circus and the spring
Again are here!