(A SONG OF SINCERE SYMPATHY.)
AIR—"The Slave in the Dismal Swamp."
In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp
The Search-Light sends its ray!
What is that hideous oozy tramp?
What creatures crawling 'midst jungle damp
Scuttle from light away?
Revealing radiance shine, oh shine,
Through black bayou and brake,
Where knotted parasites intertwine,
And through the tangles of poisonous vine
Glideth the spotted snake.
Where hardly a human foot would pass,
Or an honest heart would dare
The quaking mud of the foul morass,
With rank weed choked, and with clotted grass,
Fit for a reptile's lair.
They dread the light, do those dismal things,
Its gleam they dare not face.
Their snaky writhings, their bat-like wings,
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.
Smite, smite like flail upon garnered grain,
These things of bestial birth!