THE LISTENERS Walter de la Mare

An intensely atmospheric piece this and steeped in mystery too. Who is the Traveller, Where is he, What kind of tryst had he made and with whom? The poem is dated for sure but propels us effortlessly towards a series of un-answerable metaphysical questions. It´s unworldliness is gently disturbing and magnificently perplexing. No wonder it is such a favourite.You can take the door and what lies beyond as The Quest of a Life, The Higher Self, One´s Maker or The Promise of Heaven . Are the phantoms the ghosts of Men or even the spirits of our extinct species?! It seems to open to any number of shifting interpretations. Incidentall there's another de la Mare 'All That's Past' at http://www.youtube.com/user/Caspar33?feature=mhum#p/u/0/VDQRfk8rXso

THE LISTENERS
'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.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Poetry live
• Is there anybody there
• Walter de la Mare
• Classic suspense
• Spooky mystery
• No answer.

[dragonheart130]

Very well read :-) I hope you do a lot more poetry readings as its hard to find my favourite poems read out as well as this :-)

[Caspar33]

@dragonheart130 Thanks, yes you will find a great deal of poetry, some classics and some of my own on the site. Hope you enjoy.

[Caspar33]

Shucks! Well you can't please everyone. I did train as an actor so maybe those rhetorical pauses and the ingrained clarity of diction are more insidiously counter-productive than I thought. Thanks for comment - always useful. See if you have the same reaction to a more personal piece for example, The Insight Giver?

[AntPDC]

@Caspar33 On the basis of a single, critical comment I wouldn't fret a lot. Your critic (and mine) clearly loves this poem, and has a pretty trenchant opinion as to how it should "sound". Personally, I enjoyed your reading hugely - and of course the magic and genius of this work is its susceptibility to interpretation, whether in performance or literary analysis. I'm tempted to invite supersesqui to post his or her own performance - but that might be a bit too naughty ;). It's great to debate!

[Caspar33]

@AntPDC I've been hunting for the quote from one of the Fools in Shakespeare's plays where he says that my friends only tell me what I want to hear whereas my enemies (critics) are more useful friends as they often speak the truth.

It ain't Lear, nor Touchstone or Feste...but no matter, that's more or less the gist. Anyway thanks for your thoughts and challenge! I guess I always have in mind those for whom English is not their first language. All the best.

[muskndusk]

This is read so well that I checked your profile to see if you were a professional actor, and what do you know.......

Puts my whisper version to shame!

[Caspar33]

@muskndusk Thanks for that. But acting was never my forte, prefer to direct others or mess around with poems!

This is such a terrific piece though - it has everything.

[dragonheart130]

I've subscribed to your channel so I'll be doing a lot of listening :) I actually like your style of reading :-)

[supersesqui]

Sorry, but this sounds just like an old ham overperforming and losing the plot.

Too many effect pauses and over pronounced words.

Not being horrible, but this in one of my favourite poems being mauled.

[Caspar33]

@astat1 Thanks for saying that. Loved your Lawrence Krauss post. Cheers!