Poems: New and Old Part 20

['She divides all her roses between them.'

Well, take them all, and go--scatter them wide In gardens where men love me, and be sure

{174}.

Where even one flower falls, or one soft petal, Next year shall see a hundred.

['As they turn to go, enter LUCIA in hunting dress, with bow in hand and a hound by her side. FLORA rises to meet her, and recalls her maidens.']

Stay! attend me.

LUCIA. Greeting, fair ladies; you, I think, must be Daughters of this green Earth, and one of you The sweet Dame Flora.

FLORA. Your true servant, madam.

But if my memory be not newly withered I have not known the pleasure. . . .

LUCIA. Yes, you have seen me-- At least, you might have seen me; I am Lucia, Lady of Moonlight, and I often hunt These downs of yours with all my nightly pack Of questing beams and velvet-footed shadows.

FLORA. I fear at night. . . .

LUCIA. Oh, yes! at night you are sleeping!

And I by day am always rather faint; So we don't meet; but sometimes your good folk Have torn my nets by raking in the water; And though their neighbours laughed, there are worse ways Of spending time, and far worse things to rake for Than silver lights upon a crystal stream.

But come! My royal Sire, the Man in the Moon-- 'He' has been here?

FLORA. So many kings come here, I can't be sure; I've heard the Man in the Moon

{175}.

Did once come down and ask his way to Norwich.

But that was years agone--hundreds of years-- It may not be the same--I do not know You royal father's age. . . .

LUCIA. His age? Oh surely!

He never 'can' be more than one month old.

FLORA. Yet he's your father!

LUCIA. Well, he is and is not; ['Proudly'] I am the daughter of a million moons.

They month by month and year by circling year, From their celestial palace looking down On your day-wearied Earth, have soothed her sleep, And rocked her tides, and made a magic world For all her lovers and her nightingales.

You owe them much, my ancestors. No doubt, At times they suffered under clouds; at times They were eclipsed; yet in their brighter hours They were ill.u.s.trious!

FLORA. And may I hope Your present Sire, his present Serene Highness, Is in his brighter hours to-day?

LUCIA. Ah! no.

Be sure he is not--else I had not left My cool, sweet garden of unfading stars For the rank meadows of this sun-worn mould.

FLORA. What 'is' your trouble, then?

LUCIA. Although my father Has been but ten days reigning, he is sad With all the sadness of a phantom realm, And all the sorrows of ten thousand years.

{176}.

We in our Moonland have no life like yours, No birth, no death: we live but in our dreams: And when they are grown old--these mortal visions Of an immortal sleep--we seem to lose them.

They are too strong for us, too self-sufficient To live for us; they go their ways and leave us, Like shadows grown substantial.

FLORA. I have heard Something on earth not unlike this complaint, But can I help you?

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 wingd 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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}.

I might look down when our great galleon sails Close over earth, and see them always here Dancing upon the moonlit sh.o.r.es of night.

But how to choose!--and though they are young and fair Their every grace foretells the fatal change, The swift short bloom of girlhood, like a flower Pa.s.sing away, for ever pa.s.sing away.

Have you not one with petals tenderer yet, More deeply folded, further from the hour When the bud dies into the mortal rose?

FLORA ['pointing.'] 'There' is my youngest blossom and my fairest, But my most wilful too--you'll pluck her not Without some aid of magic.

LUCIA. Time has been When I have known even your forest trees Sway to a song of moonland. I will try it.

['She sings and dances a witching measure.']