With respect I asked, “What is the name of this land that mourns?”
And the answer was, “France the victorious.”
I kissed the earth of this land and said, “I have found my country, who was an exile.”
Perched upon an office stool, neatly adding figures, With cuffs gone shiny and a pen behind his ear; Deep in Liabilities, Goods and Double Entry, So he worked from year to year.
Diligent and careful, hedged about with figures, Given soul and body to discount and per cent; Bounded by the columns of Purchase Book and Journal, Soberly his moments went.
Now his pen has ceased from adding rows of figures, Ceased from ruling ledgers and entering amounts: Clad in sodden khaki, with a gun in Flanders He is balancing accounts.
The traditional friendship between the United States and France was recemented under the fire of German guns. In France they celebrated our Fourth of July; in this country, we celebrated the Fourteenth of July, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastile. Yank and Poilu are brothers in war, don’t mind the languages. The inextinguishable humor of France never showed more quaintly than in that word, “Poilu.” It means “unshaven.” More freely, “a man who needs a shave.” A whimsical comment upon the French soldier’s way of letting his beard grow while he is in the field. Those boys were like the English and our own. They smiled at misery. They were good old sports, bless ’em!
You’re a funny fellow, poilu, in your dinky little cap And your war worn, faded uniform of blue, With your multitude of haversacks abulge from heel to flap And your rifle that is most as big as you. You were made for love and laughter, for good wine and merry song, Now your sunlit world has sadly gone astray, And the road today you travel stretches rough and red and long, Yet you make it, petit soldat, brave and gay.
Though you live within the shadow, fagged and hungry half the while, And your days and nights are racking in the line, There is nothing under heaven that can take away your smile, Oh, so wistful, and so patient and so fine. You are tender as a woman with the tiny ones who crowd To upraise their lips and for your kisses pout, Still, we’d hate to have to face you when the bugle’s sounding loud And your slim, steel sweetheart Rosalie is out.