THE CRESCENT MOON and clock tower are fair above the wall
Across the smothered lanes of Loo, the stifled vice and all,
And in the shadow yonderlike cats that wait for scraps
The crowding cabs seem waitingfor you and me, perhaps.
The cab lamps are watching as they watched for you and me,
The cab lamps are a-watching and they watch unblinkingly.
The sea breeze in Macleay Street and star-angels over all,
But the slinking cabs of darkness keep their watch beside the wall.
Oh! the years we slipped like monthsand the months like a day
When our cabs slid from the standtouched the kerb and sped away
Oh! the cloak on girlish shouldersOh! the theatres and light!
And the private rooms and supper that were all in a night!
Oh! the rickshaw in Colombo! And the flat that no one knew,
Where the cab lamps watched HaymarketLondon cabs for me and you.
Oh! the gay run Home by Paris when the world was ours to play
And the wild run back by Frisco that seems all in a day.
Oh! the cab lamps and rose curtains, when the lie called love seemed true,
While an honest wife and husband suffered by the lanes of Loo.
Oh! the health and strength and beauty and the money with its power
And those two good lives we ruined that was all in an hour.
But the night policemans coming with a sharp suspicious eye,
And hed shift us quick and lively to the sweet by and by.
So well seek our frowsy bedroom, if the old hag lets us through
Where our folks died broken-hearted in the cruel lanes of Loo.
The cab lamps are watching as they watched across the sea,
The cab lamps are watching, and they watch for you and me.
For you and me they waited, when the thing called love seemed true,
But the bulls-eye of our midnight must not flash on meand you.
