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