Paulclem

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 grasses
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 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 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.

I first came across this poem in my late teens when it was introduced to us by a student teacher. I immediately liked the sense of mystery it inculcated, and I felt it was a poem of questions. I still do.

Yet I came away without feeling I had fully understood its meaning - the usual thing with a good poem. I accepted it as a poem of mystery, and I was happy with that.

That is until I realised that the two questions asked by the Traveller - "Is there anybody there?" - were the classic opening questions in a seance.

The poem began to make more sense now. The Traveller was there by agreement - with spirits? - who weren't there to meet him. Yet there is a palpable sense of something inhabiting the house - felt both by the reader and the Traveller - "He felt in his heart their strangeness".

Why was the horse there? I began to consider the effect of the strange Listeners on the horse - none - he's happily champing grasses. Yet the traveller knockng on the door in his quest has disturbed the bird in the turret.

This semed to me to indicate some of De La Mere's attitude to the spirits - unfathomable, and his attitude to the Traveller in his futile quest. He certainly leaves unfulfilled. Was De La Mere adding his comment about pursuing the Spirits?

Ad what about that final line?

And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Tremendous.