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. A Grain of Desert Sand
2. That Half-Crown Sweep
3. Under the Shadow of Kiley’s Hill
4. Song of the Artesian Water
5. White Cockatoos

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