POET.
I? Never.
MARQUISE.
Then how do you write your verse?
POET.
I make poems The way your seamstresses make your dresses.
MARQUISE.
With a pattern and a measure?
POET.
With a pattern and a measure.
MARQUISE.
Impossible! Poets give tongue to truth sublime.
POET.
Pardon, marquise, but it is folly To think that poems are something more than needles On which to thread the truth.
MARQUISE.
Truly, are they no more than that?
POET.
Ephemeral and vain, in this age Poetry is woven of agile thought.
MARQUISE.
What of the sort that weeps and yearns most woe-begone?
Poignancy that is the ending of a poem?
POET.
All that Is reached with the n.o.ble aid of a consonant As great love is reached with a kiss.
MARQUISE.
And what of the void in which my soul is lost Since no one, poet ... no one cries his need for me....
POET.
Do not say that, marquise. I can a.s.sure you....
MARQUISE.
That I am a motif for a handful of consonants?
POET.
Nonsense! I swear it by your clear eyes....
MARQUISE.
Comparable, I suppose, in verse to two clear diamonds....
POET.
You scoff, but love is very serious....
MARQUISE.
Love serious, poet? A betrothal, it may be, is serious, Arranged by grave-faced parents with stately rites; Yawns are serious and so is repletion.
POET.
But tell me, whence comes this deep cynicism?
MARQUISE.
Oh, do not take it ill. I say it but in jest, Merely because I like to laugh at the abyss, What do you think, poet?
POET.
Well, marquise, I must confess That I am capable of feeling various loves.
MARQUISE.
Then you were born for various women.
POET.
No, I was born for various sorrows.
MARQUISE.
Or, by the same token, for various pleasures.
POET.