The Listeners
by Walter de la Mare

“Is there anybody there?” Said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grass

Of the forest’s ferny floor;

And a bird flew up out of the turret,

Above the Traveller’s head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;

“Is there anybody there?” He said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;

No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked in his gray eyes,

Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners

That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,

That goes down to the empty hall,

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken

By the lonely Traveller’s call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,

Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

‘Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even

Louder, and lifted his head:–

“Tell them I came, and no one answered,

That I kept my word,” he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,

Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,

And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward,

When the plunging hoofs were gone.

By heart was how I used to recite this poem when I was in class six. I recited it with my classmates while we stood straight and proud, and shouted the words into a sort of song.  There was also a lot of fear because if we didn’t recite it correctly we got caned. This was done every morning before the beginning of class. Sadly, I can’t recite it any more. However, I have grown to love this poem. Try reading it out loud.

Happy Wednesday!
—

J