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 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!