The lyric is “Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong.” It opens “Waltzing Matilda,” Australia’s best-known bush ballad and an unofficial national anthem.
The song was written by poet and journalist Banjo Paterson in 1895, with music associated with Christina Macpherson. A swagman was an itinerant worker carrying a “swag,” or bedroll and belongings, while a billabong is a waterhole or branch of a river that forms away from the main channel.
The first verse places the swagman beneath a coolibah tree, waiting for his billy to boil. Later verses tell of his theft of a jumbuck, pursuit by a squatter and troopers, and death in the billabong. “Waterhole” is related to the setting, but it appears in older lyric variants rather than the standard opening line.