Poppies in the wheat fields as sinks the summer sun, Broken, bruised and trampled—but the bitter day is won; Yonder in the woodland where the flashing rifles shine, With their poppies in their helmets, the front files hold the line. Poppies in the wheat field; how still beside them lie Scattered forms that stir not when the star shells burst on high; Gently bending o’er them beneath the moon’s soft glance, Poppies of the wheat fields on the ransomed hills of France. JOSEPH MILLS HANSON, Capt., F.A. POILU You’re a funny fellow, poilu, in your dinky little cap And your war worn, faded uniform of blue, With your multitude of haversacks abulge from heel to flap, And your rifle that is ’most as big as you. You were made for love and laughter, for good wine and merry song, Now your sunlit world has sadly gone astray, And the road today you travel stretches rough and red and long, Yet you make it, petit soldat, brave and gay. Though you live within the shadow, fagged and hungry half the while, And your days and nights are racking in the line, There is nothing under heaven that can take away your smile, Oh, so wistful and so patient and so fine. You are tender as a woman with the tiny ones who crowd To upraise their lips and for your kisses pout, Still, we’d hate to have to face you when the bugle’s sounding loud And your slim, steel sweetheart Rosalie is out. You’re devoted to mustaches which you twirl with such an air O’er a cigarette with nigh an inch to run, And quite often you are noticed in a beard that’s full of hair, But that heart of yours is always twenty-one. No, you do not “parlee English,” and you find it very hard, For you want to chum with us and words you lack; So you pat us on the shoulder and say, “Nous sommes camarades.” We are that, my poilu pal, to hell and back. STEUART M. EMERY, Pvt., M. P. AS THINGS ARE The old home State is drier now Than forty-seven clucks Of forty-seven desert hens A-chewin’ peanut shucks. There everybody’s standin’ sad Beside the Fishhill store, A-sweatin’ dust an’ spittin’ rust Because there ain’t no more. The constable, they write, has went A week without a pinch. There ain’t no jobs, so there’s a gent ’At sure has got a cinch. I ain’t a’gonna beef a bit, But still, it’s kinda nice, A-knowin’ where there’s some to git Without requestin’ twice. THE GIRL OF GIRLS