T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). Prufrock and Other Observations. 1920.

11. 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?”