"The Listeners" by Walter de la Mare

"Is there anybody there?' said the Traveler,

Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveler's head
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
'Is there anybody there?' he said.
But no one descended to the Traveler;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his Grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
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 Traveler'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.
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...

The poem opens with the scene being set. A mysterious man is knocking on the door only dimly lit by the moon. His horse is silently feeding on the grasses and ferns that cloak the forest floor. A bird flies out of a turret bound toward the moonlit sky. The Traveller, he is called, knocked on the dark door again but nobody came to him, nor did anybody peer out of the overgrown window to see who was calling upon them. The Traveller, grey eyed, is standing perfectly still and baffled.

A number of phantoms lurk inside the dark, old, rotting mansion, listening to his every move. The house is crumbling, the light of the moon showing down upon the stairs. The ghosts have appeared to have been awakened. Somehow the Traveller feels their presence in his heart. The phantoms answered his call with the silence. Then the Traveller knocked a third time, louder, and states that he had come, and that he had kept his promise. His voice echoed in the empty house, and the ghost’s herd him depart. The silence slowly crept back and the Traveller was gone.

            The use of diction and imagery in the poem is not only profound but masterful. This is shown in phrases like “the forest ferny floor”, “phantom listeners”, and “the silence surges softly backward” give the poem an ominous and ere feel that adds to the mystery. This ominous feeling of supernatural suspense is what draws the reader in and makes them search for meaning, a purpose, an understanding. It is difficult to see why the author would write such an odd poem if it didn’t have a meaning. 

At first glance, the purpose may seem non-existent. Maybe Walter de la Mare intended for this poem to have no meaning at all. Maybe he wanted people to fill in the blanks; maybe he wanted them to take something from it as unique as the poem itself. Perhaps this is a method used by the author to make the reader think more, even if subconsciously, about the poem. The purpose may also be simply to give people something to read that is interesting to both the author and the reader. People write sometimes to educate and sometimes to get a point across, but most importantly because they are passionate and it is what they love. La mare was known to write dark and mysterious pieces, and maybe this was something that he wrote for pleasure and other people happened to enjoyed it too.

There are many different possibilities of what happened to the Listeners. One theory of how the people of the house died is that they were killed by the bubonic plague. This was chosen because the Traveller was riding a horse, implying that the poem was set in older times. Also all of the people of the house were killed, supporting the theory. Another possible theory is that perhaps the ghosts where not ghosts at all. Maybe the Traveler was the ghost, maybe the phantoms where people still alive and the Traveller was the ghost lost in limbo between life and death…coming back to the house over and over every night for a reason that we may never know.