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 multilate.
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.