I am and always have been a fan of France:
Rain-pearled Paris, Strasbourg’s swan-swum Rhine,
palm-plumed Nice, Bourgogne’s pale red wine,
subjunctive verbs and can-can underpants,
cheating on one’s wife (it’s called romance),
the bread (still good), the coffee (only fine),
the well-tied scarf, rough Breton coast, the shrine
that weeps at Lourdes—but now they’ve blown the chance
to join us in our grumbling crusade,
they Charles-de-Gaulled themselves out of a war,
denied us overflight and dared suggest
that we uncook the omelet that we’ve made,
dumb country ruled by history’s biggest bore:
bonne chance ; mais non, merci, ; au revoir, l’ouest.