Poem

It's Grand

by A. B. (Banjo) Paterson · 1902

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 an 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 Rocks, 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!
Sources, publication & text notesReference details
Canonical recordPOEM-000951
Copy-textRio Grande’s Last Race and Other Verses (1902), Project Gutenberg ebook 304; selected copy-text retained exactly; substantive wording and line/stanza layout independently confirmed against SRC-000075 under D-180
Source recordSRC-000122
Rights determinationRGT-000915
Text statusCANONICAL TEXT READY
TranscriptionDIPLOMATIC_D208_D180

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While The Billy Boils · Public-domain text · www.whilethebillyboils.com.au/poems/its-grand

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