My Monument
It is pleasant to think, as I’m watching my ink
A-drying along my paper,
That a monument fine will surely be mine
When death has extinguished my taper.
From each rhyming scribe of the journalist tribe
Purged clean of all sentiments narrow,
A pebble will mark his respect for the stark
Stiff body that’s under the barrow.
By fellow-bards thrown, thus stone upon stone
Will make my celebrity deathless.
O, I wish I could think, as I gaze at my ink,
They’d wait till my carcass is breathless.