A Rotting Carcase

My soul, do you remember the object we saw     on what was a fine summers day:     at the paths far corner, a shameful corpse     on the gravel-bed, darkly lay,     legs in the air, like a lecherous woman,     burning and oozing with poisons,     revealing, with nonchalance, cynicism,     the belly ripe with its exhalations.     The sun shone down on that rot and mould,     as if to grill it completely,     and render to Nature a hundredfold     what shed once joined so sweetly:     and the sky gazed at that noble carcass,     like a flower, now blossoming.     The stench was so great, that there, on the grass,     you almost considered fainting.     The flies buzzed away on its putrid belly,     from which black battalions slid,     larvae, that flowed in thickening liquid     the length of those seething shreds.     All of the thing rose and fell like a wave,     surging and glittering:     youd have said the corpse, swollen with vague     breath, multiplied, was living.     And that world gave off a strange music,     like the wind, or the flowing river,     or the grain, tossed and turned with a rhythmic     motion, by the winnower.     Its shape was vanishing, no more than a dream,     a slowly-formed rough sketch     on forgotten canvas, the artists gleam     of memory alone perfects.     From behind the rocks a restless bitch     glared with an angry eye,     judging the right moment to snatch     some morsel shed passed by.     And yet you too will resemble that ordure,     that terrible corruption,     star of my eyes, sun of my nature,     my angel, and my passion!     Yes! Such youll become, o queen of grace,     after the final sacraments,     when you go under the flowering grass     to rot among the skeletons.     O my beauty! Tell the worms, then, as     with kisses they eat you away,     how I preserved the form, divine essence     of my loves in their decay!