Tanks O. C. A. Child
YES, back at home I used to drive a tram;
And Sammy, there, he was a driver, too—
He used to ride his racer—did Sir Sam;
While pokey London streets was all I knew.
But now, His Nibs and I, of equal rank,
Are chummy as the paper and the wall,
Each tooling of a caterpillar tank,
Each waiting on the blest old bugle call.
Say! Tanks are sport—when you get used to them,
They’re like a blooming railroad, self-contained;
They lay their tracks, as you might say—pro tem,
And pick ’em up, and there’s good distance gained.
They roar across rough country like a gale,
They lean against a house and push it down,
They’re like a baby fortress under sail,
And antic as a three-ring circus clown.
Sam says they’re slow. They may seem so to him—
They can’t show fancy mile-a-minute stuff,
But when they charge, in armored fighting trim,
You bet the Germans find ’em fast enough!
Now Sam and I are waiting, side by side,
To steam across yon farm-land in the night;
We’ll take their blamed barbed wire in our strides
And stamp a German trench line out of sight.