The Flowers of Evil

The Gladly Dead
by Charles Baudelaire

In a soil thick with snails and rich as grease
I've longed to dig myself a good deep grave,
There to stretch my old bones at ease
And sleep in oblivion, like a shark in a wave.

Wills I detest, and tombstones set in rows;
Before I'd beg a tear of anyone,
I'd rather go alive and let the crows
Bleed the last scrap of this old carrion.

O worms! Black comrades without eye or ear,
Here comes a dead man for you, willing and gay;
Feasting philosophers, sons born of decay,

Come burrow through my ruins, shed not a tear;
But tell me if any torture is left to dread
For this old soulless body, dead as the dead?