Falk monologue — Love's Comedy

[after gazing a moment at her in meditative sympathy] That such must be your lot I long had guessed. When first I met you, I can well recall, You seemed to me quite other than the rest, Beyond the comprehension of them all. They sat at table,--fragrant tea a-brewing, And small-talk humming with the tea in tune, The young girls blushing and the young men cooing, Like pigeons on a sultry afternoon. Old maids and matrons volubly averred Morality and faith's supreme felicity, Young wives were loud in praise of domesticity, While you stood lonely like a mateless bird. And when at last the gabbling clamour rose To a tea-orgy, a debauch of prose, You seemed a piece of silver, newly minted, Among foul notes and coppers dulled and dinted. You were a coin imported, alien, strange, Here valued at another rate of change, Not passing current in that babel mart Of poetry and butter, cheese and art. Then--while Miss Jay in triumph took the field--