Eugene Field

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!
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