Sometimes I would like to know
how it behaves with a great gentleman,
if they have to go every now and then,
and how dignity sets in

What a face makes the big
Takkur, when he takes the paper,
or He, when He's marshal's trousers
stripped down to conscious purpose?

How does our Gerhart behave?
Does he know Goethe's attitude in the toilet?
Is Stefan Georges bowel movement very hard,
or does he cheer Evoe?

Preserve the bonapartic gestures
Mussolini too, where nobody sees it?
Can it endanger the dignity of the thinker?
if Count Keyserling pulls the line?

Whether dictator, thinker, poet, king,
no one has the earth left over.
And the farmer cares little about the origin
when he soaks his meadows with it.

1926, 39 Tyll