The Joyful Corpse

Poem by Charles Baudelaire Collection The Flowers of EvilThemes DeathPeriod 19th century

In a fat earth crawling with snails
I want to dig myself a deep grave,
Where I can at leisure spread out my old bones
And sleep in oblivion like a shark in the wave,

I hate testaments and I hate tombs;
Rather than beg a tear from the world,
Living, I would rather invite the crows
To bleed every end of my foul carcass.

O worms! black companions without ears and without eyes,
See coming to you a free and joyful corpse;
Philosophers, lovers of life, sons of rottenness,

Through my ruin go then without remorse,
And tell me if there is still some torture
For this old body without a soul and dead among the dead!

Charles Baudelaire

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