While The Billy BoilsSearchMacleay Street looks to Mosman,Across the other side,With brave asphalted pavementsAnd roadway clean and wide.Macleay Street hath its mansions,Its grounds and greenery;Macleay Street hath its terracesAs terraces should be.
Red Rock Lane looks to nowhere,With pockets into hell;Red Rock Lane is a horrorOf heat and dirt and smell.Red Rock Lane hath its brothels,Of houses one in three;Red Rock Lane hath its corner pubsAs fourth-rate pubs should be.
Macleay Street, cool and quiet,Is marked off from the town,And standing in the centreThe tall arc lamps look down.The jealous closed cabs vanishThat 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 vanishThrough doorways dark and low.Lust, thievery, drink and madnessIn 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 razzlesUntil the night grows pale.Macleay Street hath its scandals,But—only this is plain,That nothing is a scandalDown there in Red Rock Lane.
Macleay Street looks to MosmanIn morning’s rosy glow,And freshly to the cityThe summer-suited goWhile wild-eyed, foul and shaking,Red Rock Lane wakes again.This morning at the CentralThey’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 MariaWhen Red Rock Lane is dead.But doctors come in motor carsWhen Macleay Street’s got a head.
The grey-faced, weedy parentsSunk in Red Rock Lane holes—They worry, pinch, and perishTo save their children’s souls.The fairy of Macleay StreetShall 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 sympathyOf souls to souls in hell;And because of that wild kindnessTo souls in sordid pain,My soul I’d rather ventureWith some in Red Rock Lane.