Dead Dialogue

David Park Barnitz

1st Corpse.
I would now that the sweet light of the sun
Might once again shine down upon my face;
So weary am I of my rottenness.

2nd Corpse.
Rejoice that now at least thou art done with life;
This thing shall nevermore return.

1st Corpse.
At last
My body is weary of the tomb;
It is a hundred years since in the grave
I have lain down between four narrow walls,
Shut up with putrid darkness and the worm.
There is no flesh upon my body now,
That was so long a-rotting; on my shelf
Here am I now nothing but stinking bones,
That have had life beneath the face of the sun.

3rd Corpse.
I am not yet utterly putrified,
And the worms yet within my flesh abound;
I do repent me that I did not learn
What life was, while I liv'd beneath the Sun—
At least then I might think of what I haddone;
But I am rotten, and I have not liv'd.

1st Corpse.
I would that I might leave this place of ordure
And look once more upon the face of the world,
Where the sun is.

2nd Corpse.
O foolish ragged-bones,
Wouldst thou show forth thy dripping excrements,
And shredded rottenness to the face of day?—
Stink and be still, and leave us here in peace.

1st Corpse.
Envy me not, O stench, slop-face, dung-eyes;
My bones are clean and dry as the tomb's walls,
And stink not; as for thee, thou art a sink.

2nd Corpse.
Envy me not, thou, that I am so sweet
The black worms love me; hungry were that worm
That on thee preys.

4th Corpse.
Be silent, both ye dead and rotten things;
Lo I, that was unburied yesterday,
Am fair and smooth and firm, and almost sweet;
If that I were not dead, one might me love.

3rd Corpse.
Is it so sweet a thing, this love, this love?

2nd Corpse.
Thy lips are green for kissing, and streaks of black
Streak over thee where the worms have not yet been!

4th Corpse.
Ha, ha, I know wherefore thou speakest so:
Because thy torture is too great for thee,
And the worms' gnawing, and thy body's rottenness,
And the rottenness in thy bones and in thy brain!

1st Corpse.
O beautiful, O dead, O spit upon,
He speaketh well that is but lately dead;
Thy flesh lies all along thee like greenslime,
O pudding gravied in thine own dead sauce!

2nd Corpse.
Rotten one!

1st Corpse.
Dung-heap!

2nd Corpse.
Dead one!

1st Corpse.
Beast! beast! beast!
Therefore perhaps, thou art so early dead?

2nd Corpse.
They say that those thou lovedst were not men,
goat-face— Shall I say what was thy death?

4th Corpse.
Come, come, my brothers, be not so slanderous;
We have all been the same upon the earth.

3rd Corpse.
Thou sayest true, new brother,

1st Corpse.
Thou sayest true.

2nd Corpse.(Aside.)
I shall not suffer anything any more;
I have left all that; I am evermore releas'd;
1 shall not struggle and suffer any more;
This seemeth strange and very sweet to me;
And I shall grow accustom'd to the worms.

5th Corpse.
Rejoice not thou, that thou art fallen
Into a pit where people leave their dung;
There is no reason here for any joy.

Sepulchre.
Be silent, now, ye spindle-shanked dead!
Ye will learn to be silent when y'are here
For a long time; ye always spout and roar,
At first, before the time of rottenness;
But so I suppose it must be,—y' are not the first,
And ye shall not be the last; so fast i' the world,
So eagerly they are begotten, and they die,
And they are begotten again; just for this end
Hideously propagated evermore.

A Voice above singing.
Golden is the sunlight,
When the daylight closes,
Golden blow the roses
Ere the spring is old;
All thy hair is golden,
Falling long and lowly
Round thy bosom holy;
And thy heart is of fine gold!