Conversation Galante

by T.S. Eliot

     I observe: "Our sentimental friend the moon!
     Or possibly (fantastic, I confess)
     It may be Prester John's balloon
     Or an old battered lantern hung aloft
     To light poor travellers to their distress."
       She then: "How you digress!"

     And I then: "Some one frames upon the keys
     That exquisite nocturne, with which we explain
     The night and moonshine; music which we seize
     To body forth our vacuity."
       She then: "Does this refer to me?"
       "Oh no, it is I who am inane."

     "You, madam, are the eternal humorist,
     The eternal enemy of the absolute,
     Giving our vagrant moods the slightest twist!
     With your air indifferent and imperious
     At a stroke our mad poetics to confute—"
       And—"Are we then so serious?"