Dr. Sam

TO MISS GRACE KING     Down in the old French quarter,     Just out of Rampart street,     I wend my way     At close of day     Unto the quaint retreat     Where lives the Voodoo Doctor     By some esteemed a sham,     Yet I'll declare there's none elsewhere     So skilled as Doctor Sam     With the claws of a deviled crawfish,     The juice of the prickly prune,     And the quivering dew     From a yarb that grew     In the light of a midnight moon!     I never should have known him     But for the colored folk     That here obtain     And ne'er in vain     That wizard's art invoke;     For when the Eye that's Evil     Would him and his'n damn,     The negro's grief gets quick relief     Of Hoodoo-Doctor Sam.     With the caul of an alligator,     The plume of an unborn loon,     And the poison wrung     From a serpent's tongue     By the light of a midnight moon!     In all neurotic ailments     I hear that he excels,     And he insures     Immediate cures     Of weird, uncanny spells;     The most unruly patient     Gets docile as a lamb     And is freed from ill by the potent skill     Of Hoodoo-Doctor Sam;     Feathers of strangled chickens,     Moss from the dank lagoon,     And plasters wet     With spider sweat     In the light of a midnight moon!     They say when nights are grewsome     And hours are, oh! so late,     Old Sam steals out     And hunts about     For charms that hoodoos hate!     That from the moaning river     And from the haunted glen     He silently brings what eerie things     Give peace to hoodooed men:--     The tongue of a piebald 'possum,     The tooth of a senile 'coon,     The buzzard's breath that smells of death,     And the film that lies     On a lizard's eyes     In the light of a midnight moon!