Wish for a Monument

 

When I am dead and gone, my dear,

make a sugarloaf of me

and set it in the wide, salt sea.

 

so in the depths, where it shall sink,

a hundred startled fishes think

it's sweet fresh water that they drink,

 

then caught in Hamburg or in Bremen

and gone to nourish men and women,

I'll come among my kind again.

 

Whereas, if I were made of granite,

I'd only serve as an excuse

for pigeons and dyspeptic critics

to rain on me their foul abuse.

 

Christian Morgensten (1871-1914)