I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death…

Though he flick my shoulders with his whip, I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death; I am not on his pay-roll.

Conscientious Objector, by Edna St. Vincent Millay

It’s hard not to love the French in general and it’s actually quite impossible for me.  I realized I wasn’t going to win this one the first time I saw a McDonald’s on the Champs-Élysées and felt like I’d just been stabbed.  Or being moved to tears by Edith Piaf singing La Marseillaise (which is how I learned to roll my “r” in French, or try to).  Too late, I thought, they’ve really got…