T.S. Eliot: Conversation Galante
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 own 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 aid indifferent and imperious
At a stroke our mad poetics to confute—»
And—«Are we then so serious?»
