"Come, now, be good, little stray _sauterelle_,
For we're going by-by to thy papa Michel,
But I'll not say where for fear thou wilt tell,
Little pigeon of France!

"Six days' leave and a year between!
But what would you have? In six days clean,
Heaven was made," said Franceline,
"Heaven and France."

She came to the town of the nameless name,
To the marching troops in the street she came,
And she held high her boy like a taper flame
Burning for France.

Fresh from the trenches and gray with grime,
Silent they march like a pantomime;
"But what need of music? My heart beats time--
_Vive la France!_"

His regiment comes. Oh, then where is he?
"There is dust in my eyes, for I cannot see,--
Is that my Michel to the right of thee,
Soldier of France?"

Then out of the ranks a comrade fell,--
"Yesterday--'t was a splinter of shell--
And he whispered thy name, did thy poor Michel,
Dying for France."