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:
______
Thiers and Picard are Cupids;
And beheaders of sunflowers too;
They paint Corots with insecticide:
Look how their tropes de-co*kchafer 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...
______
And the Rustics who take their ease
In long squattings
Will hear boughs breaking
Among the red rustlings