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Rio Grande’s Last Race and Other Verses

by Banjo Paterson

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Any Other Time

All of us play our very best game —
 Any other time.
Golf or billiards, it’s all the same —
 Any other time.
Lose a match and you always say,
‘Just my luck! I was ‘off’ to-day!
I could have beaten him quite half-way —
 Any other time!’

After a fiver you ought to go —
 Any other time.
Every man that you ask says ‘Oh,
 Any OTHER time.
Lend you a fiver! I’d lend you two,
But I’m overdrawn and my bills are due,
Wish you’d ask me — now, mind you do —
 Any other time!’

Fellows will ask you out to dine —
 Any other time.
‘Not to-night, for we’re twenty-nine —
 Any other time.
Not to-morrow, for cook’s on strike,
Not next day, I’ll be out on the bike —
Just drop in whenever you like —
 Any other time!’

Seasick passengers like the sea —
 Any other time.
‘Something.. I ate.. disagreed.. with me!
 Any other time
Ocean-trav’lling is.. simply bliss,
Must be my.. liver.. has gone amiss..
Why, I would.. laugh.. at a sea.. like this —
 Any other time.’


Most of us mean to be better men —
 Any other time:
Regular upright characters then —
 Any other time.
Yet somehow as the years go by
Still we gamble and drink and lie,
When it comes to the last we’ll want to die —
 Any other time!

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