The Old Tin Hat by Andrew Barton Paterson

In the good old days when the Army's ways were simple and unrefined, / With a stock to keep up their chins in front, and a pigtail down behind, / When the only light in the barracks at night was a candle of grease or fat, / When they put the extinguisher on the light, they called it the Old Tin Hat.

Now, a very great man is the C. in C., for he is the whole of the show -- / The reins and the whip and the driver's hand that maketh the team to go -- / But the road he goes is a lonely road, with ever a choice to make, / When he comes to a place where the roads divide, which one is the road to take. / For there's one road right, and there's one road wrong, uphill, or over the flat, / And one road leads to the Temple of Fame, and one to the Old Tin Hat.

And a very great man is the man who holds an Army Corps command, / For he hurries his regiments here and there as the C. in C. has planned. / By day he travels about in state and stirreth them up to rights, / He toileth early and toileth late, and sitteth up half the nights; / But the evening comes when the candle throws twin shadows upon the mat, / And one of the shadows is like a wreath, and one like an Old Tin Hat.

And a very proud man is the Brigadier at the sound of the stately tread / Of his big battalions marching on, as he rides with his staff ahead. / There's never a band to play them out, and the bugle's note is still, / But he hears two tunes in the gentle breeze that blows from over the hill. / And one is a tune in a stirring key, and the other is faint and flat, / For one is the tune of "My new C. B. " and the other, "My Old Tin Hat."

And the Colonel heading his regiment is life and soul of the show, / It's "Column of route", "Form troops", "Extend", and into the fight they go; / He does not duck when the air is full of the "wail of the whimpering lead", / He does not scout for the deep dugout when the 'planes are overhead; / He fears not hog, nor devil, nor dog, and he'd scrap with a mountain cat, / But he goeth in fear of the Brigadier, and in fear of the Old Tin Hat.

Smith's Weekly, 12 July 1919