mouldering

Now here's a cheery one. Mouldering seems to be decomposition, but it implies a certain dryness, a crumbling to dust rather than the (urp) wet sort of gelatinous mess one might find in mortificacious circumstances.

The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:
And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound,
Half sense half thought, among the darkness stirs,
Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around,
And, mingling with the still night and mute sky,
Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.

[From "A Summer Evening Churchyard," by Percy Bysshe Shelley]

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Mouldering
Molder Mold"er, Moulder Mould"er, v. i. [imp. & p. p.
Molderedor Mouldered; p. pr. & vb. n. Moldering or
Mouldering.] [From Mold fine soft earth: cf. Prov. G.
multern.]
To crumble into small particles; to turn to dust by natural
decay; to lose form, or waste away, by a gradual separation
of the component particles, without the presence of water; to
crumble away.
[1913 Webster]

The moldering of earth in frosts and sun. --Bacon.
[1913 Webster]

When statues molder, and when arches fall. --Prior.
[1913 Webster]

If he had sat still, the enemy's army would have
moldered to nothing. --Clarendon.
[1913 Webster] Molder

-- From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

mouldering
adj : becoming rotten; "a field covered with thousands of
decomposing bodies"; "John Brown's body lies
a-moldering in the grave" [syn: decomposing, moldering]

-- From WordNet (r) 2.0