There & Back Part 23

He was not sorry, however, to let Barbara know him for a poor relation of the high family of poets. In truth, what best enabled him to understand their work, was the humble work of the same sort he did himself.

She did not understand what he meant by a _whittler of reeds_, but she rightly took what he said for a humble affirmative.

"I begin to be frightened at you!" she rejoined, half meaning it. "Who knows what else you may not be!"

"I am little enough of anything," answered Richard, "but nothing that I do not wish to be more of."

A short silence followed.

"You have not told me yet why he changed that line!" resumed Barbara.

"Better wait until I can show it you in the book: then you will see at once."

"Please, go on then. I don't know anything about the poem yet! I don't know why it was written!"

"You like some dreams, though they have no reason in them, don't you?"

"Yes; but then I suppose there is reason in the poem!"

"There is, indeed!" said Richard, and went on.

But presently she stopped him.

"One thing I should like to know before we go further," she said; "--why they all fell down except the ancient Mariner."

"You remember that Death and the woman were casting dice?"

"Yes."

"It is not very clear, but this is how I understand the thing:--They diced for the crew, one by one; Death won every one till they came to the last, the ancient Mariner himself, and the woman, a sort of live Death, wins him. That is why she cries, 'I've won, I've won!' and whistles thrice--though she has won only one out of two hundred. I should think she was used to Death having more than she, else she wouldn't have been so pleased. Perhaps she seldom got one!"

"Yes, I see all that. But things oughtn't to go by the casting of dice.

Money may, for that does not signify, but not the souls and bodies of men. It should not be the way in a poem any more than in the open world.--Let me think!--I have it!--They were not good men, those sailors! They first blamed, and then justified, and then again blamed and cruelly punished the poor mariner, who had done wrong certainly, but was doubtless even then sorry for it. He was cruel to a bird he did not know, and they were cruel to a man they did know! So they are taken, and he is left--to come well out of it at last, I hope.--Yes, it's all right! Now you can go on."

She said nothing as he showed her the deck strewn so thick with the dead bodies, whose cursing eyes all looked one way; but when the heavenly contrast came:--

The moving Moon went up the sky, And nowhere did abide: Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside;--

she gave a deep sigh of delight, and said--

"Ah, don't I know her, the beauty! Isn't it just many a time she has made me sick with the love of her, and her peace, and her ways of looking, and walking, and talking--for talk she does to those that can listen hard! I dare say, in this old country where she's been about so long, you will think it silly to make so much of her; but you don't know here what it is to have her night after night for your one companion!

She never grows a downright friend, though--a friend you've got at the heart of! She always looks at you as if she were saying--'Yes, yes; I know what you are thinking! but I have that in me you can never know, and I can never tell! It will go down with me to the grave of the great universe, and no one will ever know it! It is so lovely!--and oh, so sad!'"

She was silent. Richard could not answer. He saw her far away like the moon she spoke of. She was growing to him a marvel and a mystery.

Something strange seemed befalling him. Was she weaving a spell about his soul? Was she fettering him for her slave? Was she one of the wild, bewildering creatures of ancient lonely belief, that are the souls of the loveliest things, but can detach themselves from them, and wander out in garments more immediately their own? Was she salamander or sylph, naiad or undine, oread or dryad?--But then she had such a head, and they were all rather silly!

When the ballad told how silvery were the sea-snakes in the moonlight, and how gorgeously varied in the red shadow, Richard looked for her to show delight in the play of their colours; but, though the sweet strong little mouth smiled, her brows looked more puzzled than pleased--which was a thing noteworthy.

Any marvel in Nature, however new, Barbara would have welcomed with bare delight; she would have asked neither the why, nor the how, nor the final cause of the phenomenon--as if, being natural, it must be right, and she needed not trouble herself; but here, in this poem, a world born of the imagination of a man, she wanted to know about everything, whether it was, or would be, or ought to be just so--whether, in a word, every fact was souled with a reason, as it ought to be. Perhaps she demanded such satisfaction too soon; perhaps she ought to have waited for the whole, and, having found that a harmonious thing, then first have inquired into the truth of its parts; but so it was: she must know as she went, that she might know when she arrived! But in this she revealed a genuine artistic faculty--that she gave herself up to the poet, and allowed him to inspire her, yet _would_ have reason from him.

Richard went on:--

"O happy living things! No tongue Their beauty might declare; A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware!

Sure my kind saint took pity on me, And I blessed them unaware.

"The self-same moment I could pray; And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea."

Barbara jumped up, clapping her hands with delight.

"I knew something was going to happen!" she cried. "I knew it was coming all right!"

"You have not heard the end yet! You don't know what may be coming!"

protested Richard.

"Nothing _can_ go wrong now! The man's love is awake, and he will be sorrier and sorrier for what he did! Instead of saying, 'The wrigglesome, slimy things!' he blesses them; and because he is going to be a friend to the other creatures in the house, and live on good terms with them, the body he had killed tumbles from his neck; the bad deed is gone down into the depth of the great sea, and he is able to say his prayers again;--no, not that exactly; it must be something better than saying prayers now!"--She paused a moment, then added, "It must be something I think I don't know yet!" and sat down.

Richard heard and admired: he thought that as she had perceived there was something better than saying prayers, she would pray no more!

"Go on; go on," she said. "But if you like to stop, I shan't mind. I have no fear now. It's all going right, and must soon come all right!"

"O sleep! It is a gentle thing,"

said Richard, going on.

"There it is!" she interrupted. "I knew it was all coming right! He can sleep now!"

"O sleep! It is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole!

To Mary queen the praise be given!

She sent the gentle deep from Heaven, That slid into my soul."

Some one was in the room, the door of which had been open all the time.

The sky was so cloudy, and the twilight so far advanced, that neither of them, Barbara absorbed in the poem and Richard in the last of his day's work, had heard any one enter.

"Why don't you ring for a lamp?" said Lestrange.

"There is no occasion; I have just done," answered Richard.

"You cannot surely see in this light!" said Arthur, who was short-sighted. "You certainly were not at your work when I came into the room!"

He thought Richard had caught up the piece of leather he was paring, in order to deceive him.

"Indeed, sir, I was."

"You were not. You were reading!"

"I was not reading, sir. I was busy with the last of my day's work."

"Do not tell me you were not reading: I heard you!"