Oh you powers, topsy turvy powers,
You who would lead nations by a rope,
While you’re helpless, with a team of horses
Without reins, to cope.
Without driver, without reins, sheer darkness,
At my side a gulf that steeper grows,
Thus alone I galloped in the carriage
As the Alp wind blows.
Should I fear to trust my Fate and body
To a team of horses, run-away?
Wha can happen to an Austrian subject
That is worse, I pray?
In my head but coolest resignation,
’twixt my lips a smoking hot cigar,
Faster than a Russian Czar I landed
At the post, not far.
As a delinquent most examplary
Then without protection I have dined,
Ere the guards with skinned and bloody noses
Limped in from behind.
I slept well in Weidring, but the gendarmes
Spent a most uncomfortable night,
Rubbed with alcohol their backs and noses,
Easing thus their plight.
And here ends my lengthy, truthful epic,
To which I have added not a drop,
To this day in Weidring you can hear it,
From Postmaster Dahlrupp.
