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?"