It would have been in 1969 or 1970, when a fellow zoology undergraduate – an English immigrant – taught me “the Pommy version of Waltzing Matilda”. It is one of those things which should not be left to drop into oblivion, so here goes:
Once a jolly vagabond, camped by a lily pond,
Under the shade of a sycamore tree,
And he sang as he watched, and waited till his kettle boiled,
“You'll come a-walking a bulldog with me!'
REFRAIN
“Walking a bulldog, walking a bulldog,
You'll come a-walking a bulldog with me!”
And he sang as he watched, and waited till his kettle boiled,
“You'll come a-walking a bulldog with me!”
As can be assumed from the original version, the refrain is altered after every verse by substituting the third line of the previous verse for the third line of the refrain.
Down came a hedgehog to drink at that lily pond.
Up jumped the vagabond and grabbed him with glee,
And he sang as he shoved that hedgehog in his haversack,
“You'll come a-walking a bulldog with me.”
“I always like the next verse,” my friend told us.
Up rode the constable, mounted on his bicycle.
Up jumped the gamekeepers, one, two, three!
“Whose's that jolly hedgehog you've got in your haversack?”
“You'll come a-walking a bulldog with me.”
Up jumped the vagabond, and jumped into that lily pond,
Drowning himself by the sycamore tree,
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that lily pond:
“You'll come a-walking a bulldog with me.”
