The flowers of France are blooming     Among the wheat and grass— The scarlet headed poppies     That nod you as you pass, And the blue cornflowers’ brilliant hue,     And the daisies in a mass. The flowers of France are blooming     And beckoning in the breeze, And laughing in the sunshine,     And bending to the bees, (But the wooden crosses in a row—     Oh what know they of these?) The flowers of France are blooming     In every rainbow shade, And as a rainbow is an arch     By tears of heaven made, I wonder if the flowers of France     Are the tears that France has paid? A FIRST-CLASS PRIVATE. _I haven’t a worry or a care—_     _My mind’s "at ease" and furled:_ _For I’m a First-class Private,_     _And I’m Sitting on the World._ The Loot, before the whole platoon,     He up and called me forth To drill my squad, “Squads east” and “west,”     Not mentioning south and north. To drill my squad, “Squads ’round-about,”     For all the World to see— But I’m a First-class Private and     That’s good enough for me. The Loot he is a dandy man     And all that kind of thing, And I know he wants to see how I     A corporal’s job could swing: But back here in a “rest town”     It just means dirty work, And _I_ must take the bawling-out     For what the squad may shirk. ’Tis I they’d turn and eye with scorn     If some gun wasn’t clean; ’Tis I would play the wet nurse     For a rookie _none_ could wean: And if a pair of frozen shoes     Makes Smith miss reveille, It isn’t Smith or “Sunny France,”     It’s me, yes dammit, me. So forth I take the Squad to drill,     With ne’er a fault or slip; But a smile is in my glance, forsooth,     And a jest is on my lip, Akidding with each friend o’mine—     And the Loot was never fain To try to make a non-com     Of Private Me again. _Oh nothing, oh no nothing_     _May your resolution shake,_ _When you’re a First-class Private,_     _And you know you’re Sitting Jake._ BIRDS OF BATTLE. Keats sings in peerless stanzas     To the lovely Nightingale— And Shelley tells of the Skylark     Above the summer gale— But I to the Birds of Battle     Needs lift my numbers frail. For far by the out-flung wires,     Where the shell-torn tree stumps stand, And over the barren, hole-strewn tracks     Of the wastes of No Man’s Land, In the morning light and the black of night,     The Birds of Battle stand. No shrieking shots may quell them—     Nor gloom nor storm nor rain, As out of the crash or stillness     A wondrous, shrill refrain Cuts clear and glad and lithesome     Above the death-strewn plain. The weary heavens welcome,     And echo back the song, And weary soldiers linger,     And pause to listen long To the one glad cry in a war-torn sky,     That holds so much of wrong. ONLY FOR YOU.