It is at the end of the same preface that the well-known passage occurs,
thus translated by Matthew Arnold:

"I know not if I deserve that a laurel-wreath should one
day be laid on my coffin. Poetry, dearly as I have loved it,
has always been to me but a divine plaything. I have never
attached any great value to poetical fame; and I trouble myself
very little whether people praise my verses or blame them.
But lay on my coffin a _sword_; for I was a brave soldier in the
war of liberation of humanity."

The words appear strangely paradoxical. No one questions Heine's place
among the poets of the world. As a matter of fact, he was quite as
sensitive to criticism as other poets, and his courage was not more
conspicuous than most people's. But, nevertheless, those words contain
his last and true defence against the scorn of revolutionists, or men of
affairs, like Börne. There is no need to make light of Börne's
achievement; that also has its high place in the war of liberation. But,
powerless as the word may seem, there was in Heine's word a liberating
force that is felt in our battle to this day. He did not wield the axe
himself, but behind him has moved a mysterious figure, muffled in a
cloak--a Lictor following his footsteps with an axe--the deed of Heine's
thought.




V