[18] The Circus Band:
Transcribed for band by Jonathan Elkus from George F. Roberts's orchestration, with [optional] mixed chorus, of Ives's song, S33, Version 3 (Peer International)

Composed as a march possibly as early as 1894 but worked over several times in the next forty years, Ives's verses to this thoroughbred quickstep's printing in his 114 Songs are at once witty and wistful:

All summer long, we boys dreamed 'bout big circus joys!
Down Main Street, comes the band, Oh!
          "Ain't it a grand and a glorious noise!" [Repeat]
Horses are prancing, Knights advancing;
Helmets gleaming, Pennants streaming,
Cleopatra's on her throne! That golden hair is all her own. [Repeat] [Tri]
Where is the lady all in pink? Last year she waved to me I think,
Can she have died? Can! that! rot! She is passing but she sees me not.
          [Last time patchwork-overlay of college songs from Version 3:]
Riding down from Bangor on the midnight train,
Rip, slam, bang we go, Sir, right on thro' the rain,
I had a horse we'd called Napoleon,
All on account of his "Bony parts."
When in after years we take our children on our knee,
We'll teach them that the alphabet begins with D.K.E.