Poems and Baudelaire Flowers/To the Bodies of the Dead
TO THE BODIES OF THE DEAD
O husks of vanished souls,
O bodies cast away
Into drear, darkened holes
Far from the light of day,
O tender bodies, can ye not feel at all,
Pent by your thick earth-wall
So desolate, so desolate?
Once quivering heart and brain,
Within you doth no spark o’ the spirit remain
To mourn your pitiful fate?
Ah, nay! though some of you in dank, moist earth were laid,
Naught but a few thin boards for screen, which soon decayed;
Creeping and soft and quiet
The worms hold silent riot,
They burrow rotting skin and flesh,
Eagerly writhing through, and lose
Themselves amid the coiling bowels’ mesh
Pricking, and forth the secret juices ooze,
The which they suck, nor cease
Ever, in those abodes of ghastly peace.
And some are in dry vaults, encased in solid stone;
But these fare otherwise, for ribs and gaunt breast-bone
Gradually protrude as the brown and shrivelled skin
Sinks slowly, and the flesh moulders away within,
Crumbling into dust;
Strong arm and lofty brow
Which made the nations bow,
Wrapt in eternal gloom
Crumble into dust;
Yea, face and breasts and womb
Which moved men’s love and lust,
Alike within the tomb
Fall to a little dust.
O solitary hearts that no pain sears,
I give you gifts of grief through all my years;
O poor transformèd eyes that may not weep,
I bring you many tears;
O void dark brains laid in ignoble rest,
Though ye be buried deep,
Your unborn thoughts in me made manifest
Throng to you where ye sleep.