Who Listens?

A spooky poem for a spooky month

Hello, Poetry Friend

Halloween is in a few days. Time for a scary poem! And while some folks turn to Edgar Allan Poe during Spooktober, I go to Walter de la Mare.

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.

– Walter de la Mare

I found this poem while reading Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, a spooky story set in a spooky house full of spooky people. I read De La Mare’s poem again — this time, aloud — imagining Noemí, the book’s protagonist, as the Traveller from the poem.

And in reading aloud, I noticed something: S’s

So many S’s! S’s in nouns. S’s in verbs. S’s at the beginning of words, at the end of words, and in the middle of words. They all merge into one giant Shhh.

This poem is all about mood. I don’t know who the Traveller is or what his promise is. I don’t know who The Listeners are. I don’t know how the horse can be champing and cropping amid such underlying creepiness. But I don’t need to know. When I get to the end, all I want to do is read it again.

Poetry Journal

• Read the poem and try to picture it as you read.

• Jot down what you notice, what you like, what you don’t, what questions you have, and at least one way in which the poem speaks to your soul.

• Read the poem again, aloud (if you didn’t the first time). Is there anything you notice this time that you want to add to your journal?

• Write your own poem that uses a sound to convey a mood. If you like, email me what you write.

Take care, Megan