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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