Their quaking menace of fangs and stings
Make horror of the place.

All things should be so bright and fair
In a land so glad and free;
But the Search-Light layeth dark secrets bare,
And shows how loathsomeness builds a lair
In a land of Liberty.

Push on, brave bearer of piercing Light,
Through pestilential gloom,
Where crawls the spawn of Corruption's night!
Deal out, stout searcher, to left and right,
The cleansing strokes of doom.

That fair lithe form in that fleet frail bark
Is a comely Nemesis,
Before whose menace 'tis good to mark
The reptile dwellers in dens so dark
Driven with growl and hiss.

The saurian huge and the lizard slow,
Foul shapes of ruthless greed,
And the stealthy snake of the sudden blow,
All owl-like shrink from the Search-Light's glow,
Or fly with felon speed.

Corruption's spawn must be chased and slain,
Scourged from the wholesome earth.
It clingeth else like the curse of CAIN.