Canopy of Sighs

My life is one long canopy of sighs
Upon this shore where tides of doom are hurled,
And though the midnight Moon is polished, pearled,
This place is lusterless, no Paradise.

And with each dawn the circling birds of prey
Will harry me from pillar and to post,
And then a pale and lovely elfin ghost
Will haunt me to the very end of day.

Then in the dusk great harpies swoop to claw
And gouge my flesh with talons like to knives,
I slay them with the sword, each has nine lives,
They strike me till my wounded flesh is raw.

Now from a dizzy cliff I fall to doom
Upon that dark isle’s wide and angry reef,
Yet not in death is there the least relief,
For I’m revived by sensuous perfume!

My life is one long canopy of sighs
Upon this shore where tides of doom are hurled,
And though the midnight Moon is polished, pearled,
This place is lusterless, no Paradise.