The Worms of History

On the eighth day God died; his bearded mouth
That had been shut so long flew open.
So Adam's too in a dismay like death-
But the world still rolled on around him,
Instinct with all those lesser powers of life
That God had groaned against but not annulled.

"All-excellent", Adam had titled God,
And in his mourning now demeaned himself
As if all excellence, not God, had died;
Chose to be governed by those lesser powers,
More than inferior to excellence -
The worms astir in God's corrupt flesh.

God died, not excellence his name:
Excellence lived, but only was not God.
It was those lesser powers who played at God,
Bloated with Adam's deferential sighs
In mourning for expired divinity;
They reigned as royal monsters upon earth.

Adam grew lean, and wore perpetual black;
He made no reaching after excellence.
Eve gave him sorry comfort for his grief
With birth of sons, and mourning still he died.
Adam was buried in one grave with God
And the worms ranged and ravaged in between.

Into their white maws fell abundance
Of all things rotten. They were greedy-nosed
To smell the taint out and go scavenging,
Yet over excellence held no domain.
Excellence lives; they are already dead -
The ages of a putrefying corpse.

		Robert Graves