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 aid indifferent and imperious At a stroke our mad poetics to confute--"

And--"Are we then so serious?"

Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot - Complete Text

Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot E-Text contains the full text of Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot

• Gerontion
• Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar
• Sweeney Erect
• A Cooking Egg
• Le Directeur
• Mélange adultère de tout
• Lune de Miel
• The Hippopotamus
• Dans le Restaurant
• Whispers of Immortality
• Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service
• Sweeney Among the Nightingales
• The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
• Portrait of a Lady
• Preludes
• Rhapsody on a Windy Night
• Morning at the Window
• The Boston Evening Transcript
• Aunt Helen
• Cousin Nancy
• Mr. Apollinax
• Hysteria
• Conversation Galante
• La Figlia Che Piange
• Sources