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 morning’s 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 They’re 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 Street’s got a head. The grey-faced, weedy parents Sunk in Red Rock Lane holes They worry, pinch, and perish To save their children’s 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 I’d rather venture With some in Red Rock Lane.