MaCleay Street And Red Rock Lane

MaCleay Street looks to Mosman,     Across the other side,     With brave asphalted pavements     And roadway clean and wide.     Macleay Street hath its mansions,     Its grounds and greenery;     Macleay Street hath its terraces     As terraces should be.     Red Rock Lane looks to nowhere,     With pockets into hell;     Red Rock Lane is a horror     Of heat and dirt and smell.     Red Rock Lane hath its brothels,     Of houses one in three;     Red Rock Lane hath its corner pubs     As fourth-rate pubs should be.     Macleay Street, cool and quiet,     Is marked off from the town,     And standing in the centre     The tall arc lamps look down.     The jealous closed cabs vanish     That stole from out the row,     Fair women stroll bareheaded,     And theatre parties go.     Red Rock Lane, hot with riot,     Hides things that none should know;     The furtive couples vanish     Through doorways dark and low.     Lust, thievery, drink and madness     In one infernal stew,     And Mrs Johnson, raving,     Walks out, bareheaded too.     Macleay Street hath its swindles,     But on a public scale;     Macleay Street hath its razzles     Until the night grows pale.     Macleay Street hath its scandals,     But, only this is plain,     That nothing is a scandal     Down there in Red Rock Lane.     Macleay Street looks to Mosman     In mornings rosy glow,     And freshly to the city     The summer-suited go     While wild-eyed, foul and shaking,     Red Rock Lane wakes again.     This morning at the Central     Theyre fining Red Rock Lane.     The Central says the risin,     Seven days, or what you will;     Macleay Street says, Drive slowly     When any one is ill.     The law sends Black Maria     When Red Rock Lane is dead.     But doctors come in motor cars     When Macleay Streets got a head.     The grey-faced, weedy parents     Sunk in Red Rock Lane holes,     They worry, pinch, and perish     To save their childrens souls.     The fairy of Macleay Street     Shall never soil her hands,     Her Pa is independent,     Or high up in the Lands.     And, well, there seems no moral,     And nothing more to tell,     But because of that fierce sympathy     Of souls to souls in hell;     And because of that wild kindness     To souls in sordid pain,     My soul Id rather venture     With some in Red Rock Lane.