A Conversation Between Robert Browning & Wallace Stevens

A fancy restaurant, circa 1925.

B: Huzzah! My friend, what thinkst thou of my poem

Sordello?

S:          That Sordello of whom, or which,

Pound mentioned in his canto?

B:                                  That's the same.

Zooks, what's the hubbub there? Those waiters swivel

and swerve like dancers in Le Sacre du

Printemps. Hast seen it, Wallace? As a spirit

that lurk'd unseen, my keen unsubtanced eye

partook at—Paris, was it, or Verona?— Grr,

the memory fuddles e'en in afterlife!

S: Stravinsky's? Yes, but let's talk of Sordello.

I read the book, but like Lord Alfred, read

but two lines that seemed lucid, and the rest

mere huff and hum, a hullabaloo of words

put on the page to make poor widows wince

and scholars' fingers rush to dusty tomes

in search of fact and date.

B:                            Mere huff and hum

thou sayst? A hullabaloo of words!

Grr, Stevens, I had thought thee better read

than wincing widows. 'Zounds! that racket! Where's

my wine? But of Sordello, of my book

that critics found unworthy; my poor book

that left bluestockings and great men befuddled!

Zooks! Lizzy understood the thing, and more,

but what is that? The world is none the wiser

albeit a touch less patriarchal.

S:                                Hah!

Sweet Robert, have you found the time to look

at my Comedian as the Letter C?

Of all the scribblers come to Kingdom Come

I fancy you would find it to your taste.

B: What? Did you speak? Hoorah! The wine at last!

But hold, good sir, what's this? I said your best

chianti, in the bottle!  Take the glass

and bring a bottle ;  but make sure, thou knave,

the cork is stuck! If not, I'll have thy hide!

Lo! there he scampers. I'd not have his hide,

poor scamp, for I have yet a heart in me.

S: Forget it, Bob. Now where's that menu? Ah!

B: Zooks!  Look!

S:                  These prices! Ho! Harrumph. Harrumph.

7.30.15