Spring is evidently here; for
The ascent of Thiers and Picard
From the green Estates lays
Its splendours wide open!

______

O May! What delirious bare bums!
O Sèvres Meudon, Bagneux, Asnières
Listen now to the welcome arrivals
Scattering springtime joys!

______

They have shakos, and sabers, and tom-toms
And none of the old candleboxes;
And skiffs which have nev... nev...
Are cutting the lake of bloodstained waters!

______

More than ever before, we roister
As on to our ant-heaps come
Tumbling the yellow heads
On these extraordinary dawns:
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Thiers and Picard are Cupids;
And beheaders of sunflowers too;
They paint Corots with insecticide:
Look how their tropes de-cockchafer the trees...

______

They're familiars of the Great What's-his-name!...
And Favre, lying among the irisis
Blinks and weeps crocodile tears
And sniffs his peppery sniff!

______

The Big City has hot cobblestones
In spite of your showers of paraffin;
And decidedly we shall have
To liven you up in your parts...

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And the Rustics who take their ease
In long squattings
Will hear boughs breaking
Among the red rustlings