RHYMES OF FRANCE

We’ve called you “Frogs” my hearties, With your regimental blue, And perhaps ’twas not through lovin’ That we wished the name on you. But now that you have got it And it’s likely it will cling, There’s a chance that maybe somehow There’s a meanin’ to the thing. Through four long fearful winters In your muggy Flanders bogs, You squatted—eating, sleeping, In your mud-holes, just like frogs. Like frogs whose spots are mingled With each grass and stone and stick, You camouflaged your hiding— You were first to pull that trick. Like frogs you sat and squinted ’Cross at Fritzie day by day, But you were ‘tout ’suite beaucoup’ When you leaped into the fray. You left a heap of frogs’ legs In the marshes where you soaked— Where tens and tens of thousands Of your punctured Poilus croaked. We’ve called you “Frogs” my hearties, With your spattered rags of blue, With your stumps and scars and crutches Which you’ll carry till you’re through, But well you’ve shown your fitness For the rank you got by chance, And so—once more—here’s to you, Oh you dauntless Frogs of France! La Ferte, France, January, 1919.

It rained like cats and dogs that night— The kid—he rambled on; We sat, we two, by candle-light In a tavern in Ballon. “The first I killed—that hand-made dirk, Well that’s a souvenir! I got it cheap—though that poor Turk, It cost him pretty dear. “He’d jumped our trench—the fog was thick— Thinks I—‘one of our men’ Still I yelled ‘Halt!’—he beat it quick, And then I yelled again. And on he went—I watched him till He scrambled to the top— Says I—‘Not if I know it, Bill!’ And then I saw him drop. “Our First Lieutenant heard me blaze And soon he came along, I stood there in a kind of daze And then he said ‘What’s wrong?’ I told him and he said ‘Good work, Suppose we have a look’— He yanked a button from the Turk, I showed you what I took. “That night I tried and tried to pray, But something, it began To pound away inside and say ‘Hey boy—you’ve killed a man!’ I just could see his clotted head In mud—the blood it ran— Oh God—all night! while something said ‘Hey boy—you’ve killed a man!’ “You’ll go to Hell—that’s where you’ll go”— For once the kid was still— “It’s funny how it gets you so, The first man that you kill. And yet—it’s just as funny too, How killin’ seems all right When hate gets jazzin’ ’round in you, Once when you’re in the fight. “That’s how it was the day our squad Got blowed to Kingdom Come When Fritzie’s steel plowed up the sod Down there along the Somme. My first machine-gun man stood there, As near as me to you— It tore his head off clean and bare And ripped his chest all through. “You don’t stop much for scruples when You’ve seen a sight like that, The rest of us advanced again, Their pills came pit-a-pat. Another fell—I grabbed his gun And left him my canteen, And then I started in to run Up toward a Boche machine. “I ducked around—for two more men That Jerry there had picked, Got in behind—and leveled when The damned thing only clicked! Down went his hand, I saw his game, He grabbed his Luger, but I swung my stock and down it came Upon his bloomin’ nut. “That there’s the souvenir I copped, Some pretty watch—eh what! From that there time she’s never stopped— She’s Fritzie on the spot! You can’t have scruples when you’ve seen Your poor old pal go West, With blood a-tricklin’ in the mud And oozin’ from his chest. “You carry on, you just don’t care, For somethin’ seems to tell He’s callin’ to you from somewhere— ‘Go on—and give ’em Hell!’” Le Mans, France, January, 1919.

Kiddy of France in your raggedy clothes Toddling along in your wooden sabots— Daddy’s old cap on his little Poilu— Now it’s all faded but once it was new— Kiddy of France with that laugh in your eyes, Tell me the secret that under it lies— Comment allez-vous today? Kiddy—mon chérie, Je vous demande Why do you press so with that little hand? Why are you jogging along at my side? Measure for measure you stretch to my stride. Kiddy—mon chérie, now out with it, come, “Avez-vous, avez-vous—some chewing gum? Avez-vous candy?”—I thought so, go on, “Avez-vous chocolat”—yes, yes—and “bon-bon?” There now mon chérie, my little Poilu, Voilà: Your gum! And now then—que dites-vous? “Merci Monsieur”—ah you’re welcome, I’m sure A hundred times welcome, mon chérie: Bonjour! Ballon, France, February, 1919.

What is this France of today, you ask? It’s a madhouse of homesick men, Chafing, each one, to renew his task In the land of his dreams again. France! It is khaki and France is blue And France is a green-capped Hun— Badge of the bondage he’s destined to Till the days of his debt are done. France is an emerald rolling plain, Ribboned with winding ways, Quivering white through the fields of grain And lost in the purple haze. France is a village of dung and ducks Where the muck-brown urchins play, Rumbling all day with the motor-trucks As they roll down the old highway. France is a hill with an ancient church— Gray towers through the poplar trees, Gargoyles a-grin from each crumbling perch At the saints on their balconies. France is a window of mellow light Where the day’s last gold has died— France is a woman with brow of white At the feet of the Crucified. France is a cap and an empty coat And a space where the embers glow— France is a grave by a shell-torn moat Where the weeds and the poppies grow. France is the ashes of yesterday And France is tomorrow’s dawn— France is a bough with a blossom spray On the ruins of Montfaucon. Verdun, France, April, 1919.

In the winter when the snow fell And this France was bleak and white, And the days turned—oh so quickly To the cold and cheerless night, I was homesick. When the rains came, ceasing never, And the earth was all a mire, And we tried to crowd the gloom out With our puny fagot fire, I was homesick. Now it’s summer and the poppies Are a-flaming on the hill— It is France in all her glory And the larks are singing, still I am homesick. Allerey, France, May, 1919.