Abel and Cain Lyrics

Tribe of Abel, sleep, drink and eat, for God gives you his indulgent smile.
Tribe of Cain, crawl in the shit, die like a dog.
Tribe of Abel, how sweet your offerings smell in the nostrils of the Seraphim.
Tribe of Cain, will your agony never end?
Tribe of Abel, see how your seed prospers, how your cattle thrive.
Tribe of Cain, your guts howl with hunger like an old cur.
Tribe of Abel, warm your belly before the patriarch's hearth.
Tribe of Cain, tremble with cold in your hole in the ground, you miserable jackal.
Tribe of Abel, be amorous and increase: your gold also will multiply.
Tribe of Cain, however much your heart might burn with love, beware of all great desires.
Tribe of Abel, bloat and guzzle like woodlice.
Tribe of Cain, drag your hounded wife and children with you down the roads.
II
Tribe of Abel, one day your carcass will manure the fetid soil.
Tribe of Cain, your task is not yet done.
Tribe of Abel, your shame will come when the sword is shattered by the peasants' stake.
Tribe of Cain, ascend to heaven, and throw God down to earth.


— Francis Scarfe, Baudelaire: The Complete Verse (London: Anvil, 1986)