’Tis pleasant on the boundary-fence,
    These sultry summer days;
A mile away, outside the scrub,
    The plain is all ablaze,
The sheep are panting on the camps,
    The heat is so intense;
But here the shade is cool and sweet
    Along the boundary-fence.

I love to loaf along the fence,
    So does my collie dog,
He often finds a spotted cat
    Hid in a hollow log;
He’s very near as old as I
    And ought to have more sense,
I’ve hammered him so many times
    Along the boundary-fence.

My mother says that boundary fence
    Must surely be bewitched;
The old man says that through that fence
    The neighbours are enriched;
It’s always down, and through the gaps
    Our stock all get them hence,
I takes me half my time to watch
    The doings of that fence.

But should you seek the reason
    You won’t travel very far,
’Tis there a mile away among
    The murmuring Belar:
The Jones’s block joins on to ours,
    And so, in consequence,
It’s part of Polly’s work to ride
    Their side the boundary-fence.