Poem by Andrew Barton Paterson

It’s Grand

It’s grand to be a squatter 
And sit upon a post, 
And watch your little ewes and lambs 
A-giving up the ghost. 

It’s grand to be a ”cockie” 
With wife and kids to keep, 
And find an all-wise Providence 
Has mustered all your sheep. 

It’s grand to be a Western man, 
With shovel in your hand, 
To dig your little homestead out 
From underneath the sand. 

It’s grand to be a shearer 
Along the Darling-side, 
And pluck the wool from stinking sheep 
That some days since have died. 

It’s grand to be a rabbit 
And breed till all is blue, 
And then to die in heaps because 
There’s nothing left to chew. 

It’s grand to be a Minister 
And travel like a swell, 
And tell the Central District folk 
To go to -- Inverell. 

It’s grand to be a socialist 
And lead the bold array 
That marches to prosperity 
At seven bob a day. 
It’s grand to be unemployed 
And lie in the Domain, 
And wake up every second day -- 
And go to sleep again. 

It’s grand to borrow English tin 
To pay for wharves and docks 
And then to find it isn’t in 
The little money-box. 

It’s grand to be a democrat 
And toady to the mob, 
For fear that if you told the truth 
They’d hunt you from your job. 

It’s grand to be a lot of things 
In this fair Southern land, 
But if the Lord would send us rain, 
That would, indeed, be grand!

1. Paddy Malone in Australia
2. The Old Bullock Dray
3. The Maori’s Wool
4. In Defence of the Bush
5. An Evening in Dandaloo

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