I'm a moral regulator, and I feel it is my mission
To keep my fellow-citizens from travelling to perdition;
I feel my mission in my bones, I'm made to regulate
The morals of my fellow-men and keep my neighbors straight.

I hunt for sin on every trail, through wood and swamp and mire,
And when I drive it from its lair I lift my gun and fire;

I hunt the sin through hidden ways, through many a covert path,
And pulverize the sinner with the thunder of my wrath.

Born was I in a sinful age, a sinful neighborhood;
My fellow-townsmen all were bad, and not a soul was good.
So, in this town of Shadigand, when I was young and strong,
I told the Shadigandians that they were foul with wrong.

My neighbors' sins filled me with grief almost beyond control.
The weight of Shadigandian sin was heavy on my soul.
“I'll make this place as virtuous as any in the land,
I'll make,” said I, “a virtuous town this town of Shadigand.

“The time will come,” I said, “twill come when sin will disappear,
When in this town will not be found a single sinner here.”
And I have done the thing I said—a work of some renown—
For now, to-day, there is not left one sinner in the town.

I'd meet men on the highways and I'd show them they were bad,
And give them all a catalogue of all the sins they had;
I'd greet them in the fields at work and-look them in the eye,
And cry aloud and spare them not and smite them hip and thigh.

I'd follow them to market, and I'd follow them to mill,
And show their gross perversities of thought and deed and will;
And then I'd seek them in their homes, and preach for days and days,
And show to them the fearful wrong and error of their ways.

And I convicted them of sin; they all began to go;
Yes, they all trickled out of town in one continuous flow;
And my own wife and family departed with the rest,
And left this town of Shadigand an unpolluted nest.

And so my prophecy came true that sin would disappear—
There's not one sinner left in town—I'm all the soul that's here.
But you, sir, you're a sinful man—foul sin your soul has hid—
What's that? You're going to leave the town? Just what the others did.