O worms! dark playmates minus ear or eye,
Prepare to meet a free and happy corpse;
Droll philosophes* children of rottenness,
Go then along my ruin guiltlessly,
And say if any torture still exists
For this old soulless corpse, dead with the dead!
Hazel Xing
The Flowers of Evil
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When, sullen beauty, you will sleep and have
As resting place a fine black marble tomb,
When for a boudoir in your manor-home
You have a hollow pit, a sodden cave,
When stone, now heavy on your fearful breast
And loins once supple in their tempered fire,
Will stop your heart from beating, and desire,
And keep your straying feet from wantonness,
I am an artist that a mocking God
Condemns, alas! to paint the gloom itself;
Where like a cook with ghoulish appetite
I boil and devour my own heart,
Hazel Xing
The Flowers of Evil
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