A Carrion

(From the French of Charles Baudelaire)

Remember now, my Love, what piteous thing

We saw on a summer's gracious day:

By the roadside a hideous carrion, quivering

On a clean bed of pebbly clay,

Her legs flexed in the air like a courtesan,

Burning and sweating venomously,

Calmly exposed its belly, ironic and wan,

Clamorous with foul ecstasy.

The sun bore down upon this rottenness

As if to roast it with gold fire,

And render back to nature her own largess

A hundredfold of her desire.

Heaven observed the vaunting carcass there

Blooming with the richness of a flower;

And that almighty stink which corpses wear

Choked you with sleepy power!

The flies swarmed on the putrid vulva, then

A black tumbling rout would seethe

Of maggots, thick like a torrent in a glen,

Over those rags that lived and seemed to breathe.

They darted down and rose up like a wave

Or buzzed impetuously as before;

One would have thought the corpse was held a slave

To living by the life it bore!

This world had music, its own swift emotion

Like water and the wind running,

Or corn that a winnower in rhythmic motion

Fans with fiery cunning.

All forms receded, as in a dream were still,

Where white visions vaguely start

From the sketch of a painter s long-neglected idyl

Into a perfect art!

Behind the rocks a restless bitch looked on

Regarding us with jealous eyes,

Waiting to tear from the livid skeleton

Her loosed morsel quick with flies,

And even you will come to this foul shame,

This ultimate infection,

Star of my eyes, my being's inner flame,

My angel and my passion!

Yes: such shall you be, O queen of heavenly grace,

Beyond the last sacrament,

When through your bones the flowers and sucking grass

Weave their rank cerement.

Speak, then, my Beauty, to this dire putrescence,

To the worm that shall kiss your proud estate,

That I have kept the divine form and the essence

Of my festered loves inviolate!