Too proud to fight? I'm not so sure — our skipper now and then Has lectured to us on patrol on foreign ships and men, And other nation's submarines, when cruising round the Bight; And‘ seems to me — when they begin — the Yankee chaps can fight.
Why, if I was in the army ( which I ai n't — and no regrets ) And had my pick of Generals — from London's latest pets, To Hannibal and Wellington — to follow whom I chose, I would n't think about it long — I'd give the job to those
Who fought across a continent for three long years and more ( I bet the neutral papers did n't say in‘ sixty-four Of Jackson, Sherman, Lee and Grant — “The Yanks can only shout” — That lot was somewhere near the front when pluck was handed out );
But what the Skipper said was this; “There's only been but one Successful submarine attack before this war begun, And it was n't on a liner on the easy German plan, But on a well-found man-of-war, and Dixon was the man
Who showed us how to do the trick, a tip for me and you, And I'd like to keep the standard up of Dixon and his crew, For they had n't got a submarine that cost a hundred thou’, But a leaky little biscuit-box, and stuck upon her bow
A spar torpedo like a mine, and they and Dixon knew That if they sank the enemy they'd sink the David too. She'd drowned a crew or two before — they dredged her up again, And manned and pushed her off to sea.— My oath, it's pretty plain
They had some guts to give away, that tried another trip In a craft they knew was rather more a coffin than a ship; And they carried out a good attack, and did it very well. As a model for the future, why, it beats the books to Hell,
A tradition for the U. S. A., and, yes — for England too; For they were men with English names, and kin to me and you, And I'd like to claim an ancestor with Dixon when he died At the bottom of the river at the Housatonic's side.”
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