We’ve called you “Frogs” my hearties,
With your regimental blue,
And perhaps ’twas not through lovin’
That we wished the name on you.
But now that you have got it
And it’s likely it will cling,
There’s a chance that maybe somehow
There’s a meanin’ to the thing.
Through four long fearful winters
In your muggy Flanders bogs,
You squatted—eating, sleeping,
In your mud-holes, just like frogs.
Like frogs whose spots are mingled
With each grass and stone and stick,
You camouflaged your hiding—
You were first to pull that trick.
Like frogs you sat and squinted
’Cross at Fritzie day by day,
But you were ‘_tout ’suite beaucoup_’
When you leaped into the fray.
You left a heap of frogs’ legs
In the marshes where you soaked—
Where tens and tens of thousands
Of your punctured Poilus croaked.
We’ve called you “Frogs” my hearties,
With your spattered rags of blue,
With your stumps and scars and crutches
Which you’ll carry till you’re through,
But well you’ve shown your fitness
For the rank you got by chance,
And so—once more—here’s to you,
Oh you dauntless Frogs of France!
LA FERTE, FRANCE,
January, 1919.