Versos English Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Proktophantasmist

English poem

Proktophantasmist

by (1749–1832)

Listen in the reader

I tell you, spirits, to your face, I give to spirit-despotism no place; My spirit cannot practise it at all.

(The dance continues)

Naught will succeed, I see, amid such revels; Yet something from a tour I always save, And hope, before my last step to the grave, To overcome the poets and the devils.