my shelf
Here am I now nothing but stinking bones,
That have had life beneath the face of the sun.
| 3rd Corpse. |
I am not yet utterly putrified,
And the worms yet within my flesh abound;
I do repent me that I did not learn
What life was, while I liv’d beneath the sun—
At least then I might think of what I had done;
But I am rotten, and I have not liv’d.
|
| 1st Corpse. |
I would that I might leave this place of ordure
And look once more upon the face of the world,
Where the sun is. |
| 2nd Corpse. |
O foolish ragged-bones,
Wouldst thou show forth thy dripping excrements,
And shredded rottenness to the face of day?—
Stink and be still, and leave us here in peace.
|
| 1st Corpse. |
Envy me not, O stench, slop-face, dung-eyes;
My bones are clean and dry as the tomb’s walls,
And stink not; as for thee, thou art a sink.
|
| 2nd Corpse. |
Envy me not, thou, that I am so sweet
The black worms love me; hungry were that worm
That on thee preys.
|
| 4th Corpse. |
Be silent, both ye dead and rotten things;
Lo I, that was unburied yesterday,
Am fair and smooth and firm, and almost sweet;
If that I were not dead, one might me love.
|
| 3rd Corpse. |
Is it so sweet a thing, this love, this love?
|
| 2nd Corpse. |
Thy lips are green for kissing, and streaks of black
Streak over thee where the worms have not yet been!
|
| 4th Corpse. |
Ha, ha, I know wherefore thou speakest so:
Because thy torture is too great for thee,
And the worms’ gnawing, and thy body’s rottenness,
And the rottenness in thy bones and in thy brain!
|
| 1st Corpse. |
O beautiful, O dead, O spit upon,
He speaketh well that is but lately dead;
Thy flesh lies all along thee like green slime,
O pudding gravied in thine own dead sauce!
|
| 2nd Corpse. |
Rotten one!
|
| 1st Corpse. |
Dung-heap!
|
| 2nd Corpse. |
Dead one!
|
| 1st Corpse. |
Beast! beast! beast!
Therefore perhaps, thou art so early dead?
|
| 2nd Corpse. |
They say that those thou lovedst were not men,
O goat-face—Shall I say what was thy death?
|
| 4th Corpse. |
Come, come, my brothers, be not so slanderous;
We have all been the same upon the earth.
|
| 3rd Corpse. |
Thou sayest true, new brother.
|
| 1st Corpse. |
Thou sayest true.
|
2nd Corpse.
Aside. |
I shall not suffer anything any more;
I have left all that; I am evermore releas’d;
I shall not struggle and suffer any more;
This seemeth strange and very sweet to me;
And I shall grow accustom’d to the worms.
|
| 5th Corpse. |
Rejoice not thou, that thou art fallen
Into a pit where people leave their dung;
There is no reason here for any joy.
|
| Sepulchre. |
Be silent, now, ye spindle-shankèd dead!
Ye will learn to be silent when y’are here
For a long time; ye always spout and roar,
At first, before the time of rottenness;
But so I suppose it must be—y’are not the first,
And ye shall not be the last; so fast i’ the world,
So eagerly they are begotten, and they die,
And they are begotten again; just for this end
Hideously propagated evermore.
|
| A voice above singing. |
Golden is the sunlight,
When the daylight closes,
Golden blow the roses
Ere the spring is old;
All thy hair is golden,
Falling long and lowly
Round thy bosom holy;
And thy heart is of fine gold!
|
Fragments
I
And since I understood not what so strong
Driveth all these at such exstatic pace,
I too went down and joined in the throng;
And many sitting in a lowly place
I saw, where sense and vision darkness clogs,
With one flat-breasted wife with munched face
And bestial litter as of rats or hogs;
These are all they that eat and multiply
In the same manner with low apes and dogs;
Like these they live and like these they shall die.
—Pass thou from these, said then to me that voice,
And heed not thou the stinking of that sty.
Then saw I them that did with wine rejoice,
Crowning their heads with roses of the earth;
I too sat down and joined in that noise,
But ask’d me soon—Why do all these have mirth?
From these I past, weary of myrrh and wine.
Others apart whose spirits had more dearth
Sat solitary as who would fain divine,
Of seeing and of hearing ill content;
With these I sat, half drunken with the vine,
And sick of visions that aye came and went;
But all the knowledge that their striving found
Was but one vision more than wine had sent;
All these also shall moulder in the ground.
From these I past as from dead flesh and bones.
Then came I where the kings of earth sat crown’d
Neath purple canopies on golden thrones;
These offer’d me part in that changeless state,
Until my soul wearied of brass and brônze.
Others whose sweating nothing could abate
Kingdoms and cities build and overthrow,
Till my soul wonder’d at the striving great
Of all the puppets in that puppet-show:
—Doth the string move them with such urgency,
That all their limbs such strange grimaces show?
—These are all they that do, one made reply;
In all their actions never could I find
What they were doing these things for nor why.
From these I past as from the deaf and blind,
And ever as I went the solemn brawl
Of all these mad and idiot howl’d behind.
I came to those that ceased not to call.
The world unto them, shouting o’er and o’er;
My heart knew not why these so loudly bawl;
And some stood round with faces that implore,
Asking for peace; and ever those that gave
Did but like these delude themselves the more;
But rottenness shall stop all these that rave.
Last, some there were that did with vanity
Toil ever with unwearied hands to save
And to eternize all things great and high;
With these I stay’d, till my heart questioned:
—What are the things thou doëst here and why?
Whereat all these became as persons dead.
Then I arose from among these the last,
And follow’d then where’er my footsteps led;
And among them that reigned then I past,
And among them that ever fain would know,
And among them whose lot with wine was cast;
I past the prophets and the puppet-show,
And among them that joy’d in marble
