Ralph, this got my head in a pretty little knot.
----Oh, one quick thing—you mean “fiancée,” with two e’s. With one e, it refers to a male.
. . . I . . . put off her entreaty
that I consider sentimental ’s mental!
I can’t parse this syntactically. How could she “entreat that you consider sentimental’s mental”? I can imagine her entreating you “to consider sentimental mental,” and I can imagine her complaining that you consider sentimental’s mental,”—but not what you said. There’s a further problem in that a colloquial connotation of “mental” is “insane,” which I gather is not—in fact, is the opposite—of what you’re driving at.
“Did!”? Did what? I can’t parse this either. And I’m having trouble even explaining my confusions in the rest of this stanza. Each line has my heart beating hard with the anxiety of incomprehension.
--Another quick thing—you mean “commingling,” with two m’s.
I do gather that what you’re trying to do here is propose that sentimentality at its best has an element of reason in it as well as feeling. That’s an interesting premise. But for me, as with Jim, it’s currently getting lost in convolutions for the bulk of this poem.
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