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The Devil's Dictionary:    

Definition of Worms' Meat

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  WORMS'-MEAT   noun
The finished product of which we are the raw material.  The contents of the Taj Mahal, the Tombeau Napoleon and the Granitarium.  Worms'-meat is usually outlasted by the structure that houses it, but 'this too must pass away.'  Probably the silliest work in which a human being can engage is construction of a tomb for himself.  The solemn purpose cannot dignify, but only accentuates by contrast the foreknown futility.
  Ambitious fool! so mad to be a show!
  How profitless the labor you bestow
      Upon a dwelling whose magnificence
  The tenant neither can admire nor know.

  Build deep, build high, build massive as you can,
  The wanton grass-roots will defeat the plan
      By shouldering asunder all the stones
  In what to you would be a moment's span.

  Time to the dead so all unreckoned flies
  That when your marble is all dust, arise,
      If wakened, stretch your limbs and yawn --
  You'll think you scarcely can have closed your eyes.

  What though of all man's works your tomb alone
  Should stand till Time himself be overthrown?
      Would it advantage you to dwell therein
  Forever as a stain upon a stone?

Joel Huck
 

Devil's Dictionarydefinition from:
The Devil's Dictionary
by Ambrose Bierce, 1911

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Last updated: 9/3/2011 12:48:30