LUCIA. Lady, if you cannot,
No one can help. In Moonland there is famine,
We are losing all our dreams, and I come hither
To buy a new one for my father's house.
FLORA. To buy a dream?
LUCIA. Some little darling dream
That will be always with us, night and day,
Loving and teasing, sailing light of heart
Over our darkest deeps, reminding us
Of our lost childhood, playing our old games,
Singing our old songs, asking our old riddles,
Building our old hopes, and with our old gusto
Rehearsing for us in one endless act
The world past and the world to be.
FLORA. Oh! now
I see your meaning. Yes, I have indeed
Plenty of such sweet dreams: we call them children.
They are our dreams too, and though they are born of us,
Truly in them we live. But, dearest lady,
We do not sell them.
{177}
LUCIA. Do you mean you will not?
Not one? Could you not lend me one—just one?
FLORA. Ah! but to lend what cannot be returned
Is merely giving—who can bring again
Into the empty nest those wingèd years?
Still, there are children here well worth your hopes,
And you shall venture: if there be among them
One that your heart desires, and she consent,
Take her and welcome—for the will of Love
Is the wind's will, and none may guess his going.
LUCIA. O dearest Lady Flora!
FLORA. Stay! they are here,
Mad as a dance of May-flies.
[The children run in dancing and singing.