In Orient where wise I was
To please the way I live,
Come give the beggar chance at hand,
His life is on his lip.
Three score a thousand times
Where once in Amazon,
Where Eldorado holds the key,
No keeper holds my hand.
Unchain the gate of solitude,
The ruler says you run,
Run hard unto the scaffold high,
Your chance to jump the gun.
Oh, how high the scaffold grows!
The plant life of your widow
In black-lace curtains brought you near,
From out the plate-glass window.
The Minotaur with bloody hands
Is enraged by the sun,
Caged he by the corpses,
Brought forth by the dawn.
In Orient is as I told,
The buckshee hangman swears,
For open crypts to silence,
Nylon knots to sway by prayer.
In Orient where wise I was
To please the way I live,
Come give the beggar chance at hand,
His life is on his lip.
