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.