I long to hear more. How are you not friendless?
What human creature save that surly pair
Comes to your lonely home?
Irene.No human creature—
Not wholly human—and I see them not—
But they are here and watch me.
Flor.Nay, but who?
Irene. My kindly Fairies. They are more to me
Than Urien is, or Nesta.
Flor.Now indeed
You make me smile. But I am wrong; you have
Some hidden undermeaning you will surely
Deign to unfold.
Irene. You never then have lived
In fairy-haunted places, nor perchance
Know what they are?
Flor.Tell me all that you know.
My fairies only live in tales and ballads.
Irene. I know what my dreams teach me and will tell you
What I have learnt from them—how, long of yore,
When these once seething isles had passed at length
From shape to shape, and each extravagance—
As nightmares, monstrous beauty, ugliness
Colossal in its daring—to the firm
Mould it is cast in now, a race of men
Unknown, unnamed, a guess, a mystery,
What human creature save that surly pair
Comes to your lonely home?
Irene.No human creature—
Not wholly human—and I see them not—
But they are here and watch me.
Flor.Nay, but who?
Irene. My kindly Fairies. They are more to me
Than Urien is, or Nesta.
Flor.Now indeed
You make me smile. But I am wrong; you have
Some hidden undermeaning you will surely
Deign to unfold.
Irene. You never then have lived
In fairy-haunted places, nor perchance
Know what they are?
Flor.Tell me all that you know.
My fairies only live in tales and ballads.
Irene. I know what my dreams teach me and will tell you
What I have learnt from them—how, long of yore,
When these once seething isles had passed at length
From shape to shape, and each extravagance—
As nightmares, monstrous beauty, ugliness
Colossal in its daring—to the firm
Mould it is cast in now, a race of men
Unknown, unnamed, a guess, a mystery,
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