  First Woman Do you share the present dread Of being sentimental? The world has flung its boutonniÈre Into the mud, and steps upon it With elaborate gestures! Second Woman Sentimentality Is the servant-girl of certain men And the wife of others. She scarcely ever flirts With creative minds, Striving also to become Graceful and indiscreet. First Woman Sappho and Aristotle Have wandered through the centuries, Dressed in an occasional novelty— A little twist of outward form. They have always been ashamed To be caught in a friendly talk. Second Woman When emotion and the mind Engage in deliberate dialogue, One hundred nightingales And intellectuals find a common ground, And curse the meeting of their slaves! First Woman The mind must only play With polished relics of emotion, And the heart must never lighten Burdens of the mind. Second Woman I desire to be Irrelevant and voluble, Leaving my terse disgust for a moment. I have met an erudite poet With a northern hardness Motionless beneath his youthful robes. He shuns the quivering fluencies Of emotion, and shifts his dominoes Within a room of tortured angles. But away from this creative room He sells himself to the whims Of his wife, a young virago With a calculating nose. Of his double life Emotion and the mind Look disconsolately at each other. First Woman Lyrical abandon And mental cautiousness Must not mingle to a magic Glowing, yet deliberate. Second Woman Never spill your wine Upon a page of mathematics. Drink it decently Within the usual tavern. |
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