Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3828/Paris Again

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Punch, Volume 147, Issue 3828 (November 18th, 1914)
Paris Again by H. S. Caldecott
4259031Punch, Volume 147, Issue 3828 (November 18th, 1914) — Paris AgainH. S. Caldecott
Big blue overcoat and breeches red as red,
And a queer quaint képi at an angle on his head;
And he sang as he was marching, and in the Tuilleries
You could meet him en permission with Margot on his knee.
At the little café tables by the dusty palms in tubs,
In the Garden of the Luxembourg, among the scented shrubs,
On the old Boul. Mich. of student days, you saw his red and blue;
Did you come to love the fantassin, le p'tit piou-piou?

He has gone, gone, vanished, like a dream of yesternight;
He is out amongst the hedges where the shrapnel smoke is white;
And some of him are singing still and some of him are dead,
And blood and mud and sweat and smoke have stained his blue and red.
He is out amongst the hedges and the ditches in the rain,
But, when the soixante-quinzes are hushed, just hark!—the old refain,
"Si tu veux faire mon bonheur, Marguérite, O Marguérite,"
Ringing clear above the rifles and the trampling of the feet!

Ah, may le bon Dieu send him back again in blue and red,
With his queer quaint képi at an angle on his head!
So the Seine shall laugh again beneath the sunlight's quick caress;
So the Meudon woods shall echo once again to "La Jeunesse";
And all along the Luxembourg and in the Tuilleries,
We shall meet him en permission with Margot on his knee.