But there is this: A marquise might also lose her head. MARQUISE. True she might lose her head ... but for a rhyme? POET. Which, no matter how true, will always be a lie. [_Pause._] MARQUISE. But why did you protest against my skepticism? POET. I riddled your words, but protested for myself. MARQUISE. So vain a reason, and so selfish? POET. A prideful reason.... I stand aghast before the abyss. MARQUISE. I see that all your love has been in verse. POET. No, marquise, but life Cradles crude truths which the poet disdains. MARQUISE. And amiable truths which passion passes by. POET. But about which the dreamer's world revolves. MARQUISE. I do not dream, I wish.... POET. I know well what I wish.... MARQUISE. Well then, we wish that it should not be merely a consonant. POET. No, rather that it should be poetry. MARQUISE. Suppose that it were so, would it content you? POET. It is enough for me, and yet I fear That this pale poetry, untried, unlived, Can have no driving urge. MARQUISE. Why then should we refuse to live it? POET. I shall tell you. It is not in high-born taste To trifle with a heart. The love of a marquise is the problematic Love of elegance and froth, And like other love a sort of mathematic Love of addition, subtraction and division. It is not rude passion, fierce, emphatic, Song and orchestral counterpoint of life. It is what the world would name platonic, Love without fire, without virility, With nothing of creation, nothing tonic, One-step love, love of society. And I will have none of this love sardonic, None of its desperate futility. MARQUISE. I do not fear you though you are a poet, And I say things to you, no other ears would endure. You were not born, poor anchorite, To say to a woman: "Be mine." And such is your secret vanity, You are a servile vassal of your own Utopia. You pretend to transform women Into laurel branches meaningless, And with your cynic's blare You thread upon the needle of your pride Dregs from the utter depths of the abyss. POET. Marquise, a poet's love has led you astray. MARQUISE.