A Carcass

My love, do you recall the object which we saw,

That fair, sweet, summer morn!

At a turn in the path a foul carcass

On a gravel strewn bed,

Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,

Burning and dripping with poisons,

Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way

Its belly, swollen with gases.

The sun shone down upon that putrescence,

As if to roast it to a turn,

And to give back a hundredfold to great Nature

The elements she had combined;

And the sky was watching that superb cadaver

Blossom like a flower.

So frightful was the stench that you believed

You'd faint away upon the grass.

The blow-flies were buzzing round that putrid belly,

From which came forth black battalions

Of maggots, which oozed out like a heavy liquid

All along those living tatters.

All this was descending and rising like a wave,

Or poured out with a crackling sound;

One would have said the body, swollen with a vague breath,

Lived by multiplication.

And this world gave forth singular music,

Like running water or the wind,

Or the grain that winnowers with a rhythmic motion

Shake in their winnowing baskets.

The forms disappeared and were no more than a dream,

A sketch that slowly falls