Explore "River Bend" by Andrew Barton Paterson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
(Air: "Belle Mahone. ")
At River Bend, in New South Wales, / All alone among the whales, / Busting up some post and rails, / Sweet Belle Mahone. / In the blazing sun we stand, / Cabbage-tree hat, black velvet band, / Moleskins stiff with sweat and sand, / Sweet Belle Mahone.
Chorus: Sweet Belle Mahone, &c.
In the burning sand we pine, / No one asks us to have a wine, / 'Tis a jolly crooked line, / Sweet Belle Mahone. / When I am sitting on a log, / Looking like a great big frog, / Waiting for a Murray cod, / Sweet Belle Mahone.
Land of snakes and cockatoos, / Native bears and big emus, / Ugly blacks and kangaroos, / Sweet Belle Mahone. / Paddymelons by the score, / Wild bulls, you should hear them roar, / They all belong to Johnny Dore, / Sweet Belle Mahone.
"River Bend. " -- This song certainly cannot boast of / antiquity, as it is a parody on a recent sentimental song, but / so many correspondents sent it in that it was decided to include / it. Perhaps it is to its obvious sincerity of sentiment / that it owes its popularity.