CONVERSATION GALANTE I observe: 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: "Someone 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 air indifferent and imperious At a stroke our mad poetics to confute--" And--"Are we then so serious?" Back to Eliot