Reading of the Day

The Song of Hate (Olindo Guerrini) 'Posthumous' (1877)

When you shall sleep forgotten
Beneath the fat earth
And the cross of God will be planted
Straight on your coffin,
When your cheeks, rotten, will melt
Into wobbly teeth
And in your stinking empty eye sockets
The worms will seethe,
The sleep that for others is peace
Will be a new torment
And a cold, tenacious remorse will come,
To chew on your brain.
A biting, atrocious remorse
Will visit your grave
Despite God, and His cross,
To gnaw your bones,
I will be that remorse, I will seek you
In the dark night,
A demon that shuns the day, I will come howling
Like a She-wolf;
And with these nails I'll dig the earth
Become manure for you
And I will tug the nails from the foul wood
That covers your vile carcass.
Oh, how in your heart still scarlet
I will sate the ancient hatred,
Oh, with what joy will I sink my nails
Into your shameless belly!
I shall sit on your stinking belly
for eternity,
The ghost of revenge and sin
The terror of hell:
And in your ear that was so fair
Unappeased I shall whisper
Things that will sear your brain
Like a red-hot iron [...]
And your pillory will be the verses
In which I consign you to eternal shame,
To torments that will make you long
for the pangs of hell
Here I'll make you die once more,
You bitch, slowly, with stabbing needles,
And your shame, my revenge,
I shall seal between your eyes.


-Image: Harpy II By Edvard Munch