Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3823/Jules François
Jules François is poet, and gallant and gay;
Jules François makes frocks in the Rue de la Paix;
Since the mobilisation Jules François's the one
That sits by the breech of a galloping gun,
In the team of a galloping gun!
When the wheatfields of August stood white on the plain
Jules François was ordered to go to Lorraine,
Since the guns would get flirting with good Mr. Krupp
And wanted Jules Francois to limber them up,
To lay and to limber them up!
The road it was dusty, the road it was long,
But there was Jules François to make you a song;
He sang them a song, and he fondled his gun,
Though I wouldn't translate it he sang it A1;
His battery thought it A1!
The morning was fresh and the morning was cool
When they stopped in an orchard two miles out of Toul,
And the grey muzzles spat through the grey muzzles' smoke,
And there was Jules François to make you a joke.
To crack his idea of a joke:—
"The road to our Paris 'tis hard as can be;
The road to that London he halts at the sea;
So, vois-tu, mon gars? 'tis as certain as sin
This wisdom that chooses the road to Berlin!"
So they follow the road to Berlin.