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