He has gone, gone, vanished, like a dream of yesternight;
He is out amongst the hedges where the shrapnel smoke is white;
And some of him are singing still and some of him are dead,
And blood and mud and sweat and smoke have stained his blue and red.
He is out amongst the hedges and the ditches in the rain,
But, when the soixante-quinzes are hushed, just hark!—the old refrain,
"Si tu veux faire mon bonheur, Marguérite, O Marguérite,"
Ringing clear above the rifles and the trampling of the feet!
Ah, may le bon Dieu send him back again in blue and red,
With his queer quaint képi at an angle on his head!