Our sins are stubborn, our resolutions weak
We make sure to be well-paid for our avowals
And gaily we start along the muddy path
Thinking cheap tears will wash away the stains.

On the cushion of evil lies Thrice-powerful Satan
Lengthily rocking our enchanted minds
And then the rich metal of our volition
Is wholly vaporised by this masterly chemist.

It's the Devil who holds the strings which make us move
We find something appealing in repugnant things.
Every day, we descend one step closer to Hell,
Without loathing we travel through the stinking gloom.

Like an impoverished lecher who kisses and eats
The martyred breast of an elderly whore,
A clandestine pleasure is ours as we pass,
And we squeeze it hard, like a dried-up orange.

Packed-in and swarming like a million maggots,
A race of demons cavort drunk in our brains,
And when we breathe, Death in our lungs,
Descends, invisible river, making muffled cries.

If rape and poison, arson, and stabbings
Have not yet embroidered with their fine designs
The banal canvas of our pitiful fate,
It's that our souls, alas, are not yet bold enough.

But among the jackals, the panthers, and hounds,
The monkeys, the scorpions, vultures, and snakes,
The growling and barking monsters who creep
In the squalid menangerie of our sins

There is one who is meaner, uglier, unclean,
Though he does no great deeds and makes little noise.
He would happily make a ruin of the earth,
And in one yawn he would swallow us all.