In a bend where the lachlan flows peacefully on,
it stands in a clump of belahs,
A tumbledown relic of days that gone

it dreams 'neath the light of the stars.
It is tentanted now by the owls and the bats
and they fly in and out through the door

But big bearded bushmen in cabbage tree hats,
ride up to the shanty no more.


What tales it could tell if its walls had a tongue,
oh its lurind and larrikan past,
Of jokes that were played and the songs that were sung,

when the gin and the whiskey flowed fast.
A hard drinking lot were those bushmen of old
and they gathered from near and from far,

Oh but of the riders lie under the mould,
who drank in that tumbledown bar.


Ben Hall often sampled it's whisky and gin
when he came to the bend with his gang.
And the walls and the rafters rang loud to the din

of the boisterious songs that they sang.
Ben Hall was a troublesome person at times
but he paid like a man for his grog

And he paid in full measure at last for his crimes,
the police shot him down like a dog


Oh but time is a tyrant and time travels fast,
and the old shanty stands in the shade,
And mourns for the men of that picturesque past

and the jokes and the antics they played.
The curlews lament from the rushes and reeds
when the shadows of evening descend,

Big bearded bushmen on half broken steeds
come riding no more to the bend.


But the old hands declare that on cold winter nights,
when the heavens are misty and blurred,
The Shanty is filled with mysterious lights

and voices and laughter are heard,
And they say you can see when the door swings ajar,
a figure black bearded and tall,

Revolver in hand by the side of the bar
and they swear it's the ghost of Ben Hall


Revolver in hand by the side of the bar
and they swear it's the ghost of Ben Hall
Look out or I'll shoot. ....