Parisian War Song

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 Sevres Meudon, Bagneux, Asnieres, 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: Theirs and Picards are Cupids; and beheaders of sunflowers too; they paint peaceful landscapes (Corots) with insecticide (paraffin): 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.. And the Rustics who take their ease in long squattings will hear boughs breaking among the red rustlings.