Its legs erected, wanton-like, in air, Burning and sweating past, In unconcern'd and cynic sort laid bare To view its noisome breast. The sun lit up the rottenness with gold, To bake it well inclined, And give great Nature back a hundredfold All she together join'd. The sky regarded as the carcass proud Oped flower-like to the day; So strong the odour, on the grass you vow'd You thought to faint away. The flies the putrid belly buzz'd about, Whence black battalions throng Of maggots, like thick liquid flowing out The living rags along. And as a wave they mounted and went down, Or darted sparkling wide: As if the body, by a wild breath blown, Lived as it multiplied. From all this life a music strange there ran, Like wind and running burns: Or like the wheat a winnower in his fan With rhythmic movement turns. The forms wore off, and as a dream grew faint, An outline dimly shown, And which the artist finishes to paint From memory alone. Behind the rocks watch'd us with angry eye A bitch disturb'd in theft, Waiting to take, till we had pass'd her by The morsel she had left. Yet you will be like that corruption too, Like that infection prove-- Star of my eyes, sun of my nature, you, My angel and my love! Queen of the graces, you will even be so, When, the last ritual said, Beneath the grass and the fat flowers you go, To mould among the dead. Then, O my beauty, tell the insatiate worm, Who wastes you with his kiss, I have kept the godlike essence and the form Of perishable bliss! II WEEPING AND WANDERING Say, Agatha, if at times your spirit turns Far from the black sea of the city's mud, To another ocean, where the splendour burns All blue, and clear, and deep as maidenhood? Say, Agatha, if your spirit thither turns? The boundless sea consoles the weary mind! What demon gave the sea--that chantress hoarse To the huge organ of the chiding wind-- The function grand to rock us like a nurse? The boundless ocean soothes the jaded mind! O car and frigate, bear me far away, For here our tears moisten the very clay. Is't true that Agatha's sad heart at times Says, far from sorrows, from remorse, from crimes, Remove me, car, and, frigate, bear away? O perfumed paradise, how far removed, Where 'neath a clear sky all is love and joy, Where all we love is worthy to be loved, And pleasure drowns the heart, but does not cloy. O perfumed paradise, so far removed!