Nicholas Vachel Lindsay

“ Then I saw the congo, creeping through the black,
Cutting through the jungle with a golden track.
Then along that riverbank
A thousand miles
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Tattooed cannibals danced in files;
Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song
And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong.
A rapidly piling climax of speed and racket
And “Blood!” screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors,
“Blood!” screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors;
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“Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle,
Harry the uplands,
Steal all the cattle,
Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle,
Bing! ”

“ And on through the backwoods clearing flew:—
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“Mumbo-Jumbo is dead in the jungle.
Never again will he hoo-doo you.
Never again will he hoo-doo you.”
Redeemed were the forests, the beasts and the men,
And only the vulture dared again
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By the far, lone mountains of the moon
Dying down into a penetrating, terrified whisper
To cry, in the silence, the Congo tune:
“Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.
Mumbo ... Jumbo ... will ... hoo-doo ... you.” ”

“ And they all repented, a thousand strong,
From their stupor and savagery and sin and wrong,
And slammed with their hymn-books till they shook the room
With “Glory, glory, glory,”
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And “Boom, boom, Boom.” ”