Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/81

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"Come, now, be good, little stray sauterelle,

For we're going by-by to thy papa Michel,

But I'll not say where for fear thou wilt tell,

Little pigeon of France!

"Six days' leave and a year between!

But what would you have? In six days clean,

Heaven was made," said Franceline,

"Heaven and France."

She came to the town of the nameless name,

To the marching troops in the street she came,

And she held high her boy like a taper flame

Burning for France.

Fresh from the trenches and grey with grime,

Silent they march like a pantomime;

"But what need of music? My heart beats time—

Vive la France!"

His regiment comes. Oh, then where is he?

"There is dust in my eyes, for I cannot see,—

Is that my Michel to the right of thee,

Soldier of France?"

Then out of the ranks a comrade fell,—

"Yesterday—'twas a splinter of shell—

And he whispered thy name, did thy poor Michel,

Dying for France."

The tread of the troops on the pavement throbbed

Like a woman's heart of its last joy robbed,

As she lifted her boy to the flag, and sobbed:

"Vive la France!" Charlotte Holmes Crawford