Muscled, black with steel-green eye Swishing through the rye grass With thoughts of mouse-and-apple pie Tail balancing at half-mast And the mouse police never sleeps Lying in the cherry tree Savage bed foot-warmer Of purest feline ancestry Look out, little furry folk! He's the all-night working cat Eats but one in every ten Leaves the others on the mat And the mouse police never sleeps Waiting by the cellar door Window-box town crier Birth and death registrar With claws that rake a furrow red Licensed to mutilate From warm milk on a lazy day To dawn patrol on hungry hate No, the mouse police never sleeps Climbing on the ivy Windy roof-top weathercock Warm-blooded night on a cold tile