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._ Shall we sit And watch these children? Phyllis, bid them play, And let them heed us no more than the trees That girdle this green lawn with whispering beauty. [_The children play and sing at their games, till at a convenient moment the LADY FLORA holds up her hand._] FLORA. Now, Amaryllis, stay the rushing stream, The meadows for this time have drunk enough. [_To LUCIA._] And you, what think you, lady, of these maids? Has their sweet foolish singing moved your heart To choose among them? LUCIA. I have heard them gladly, And if I could, would turn them all to elves, That if they cannot live with me, at least {178}