"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller, <br />Knocking on the moonlit door; <br />And his horse in the silence champed the grass <br />Of the forest's ferny floor; <br />And a bird flew up out of the turret, <br />Above the Traveller's head: <br />And he smote upon the door again a second time; <br />"Is there anybody there?" he said. <br />But no one descended to the Traveller; <br />No head from the leaf-fringed sill <br />Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, <br />Where he stood perplexed and still. <br />But only a host of phantom listeners <br />That dwelt in the lone house then <br />Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight <br />To that voice from the world of men: <br />Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, <br />That goes down to the empty hall, <br />Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken <br />By the lonely Traveller's call. <br />And he felt in his heart their strangeness, <br />Their stillness answering his cry, <br />While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, <br />'Neath the starred and leafy sky; <br />For he suddenly smote on the door, even <br />Louder, and lifted his head:-- <br />"Tell them I came, and no one answered, <br />That I kept my word," he said. <br />Never the least stir made the listeners, <br />Though every word he spake <br />Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house <br />From the one man left awake: <br />Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, <br />And the sound of iron on stone, <br />And how the silence surged softly backward, <br />When the plunging hoofs were gone.<br /><br />Walter de la Mare<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-listeners/
