Listener Walter de la Mare

Summary of the Listener

The poet Walter de la Mare in his poem 'The Listener' speaks about a traveller on horseback, who had visited an empty house in a forest, on a moonlit night.He knocked on the door hoping against hope to get an expected response.To his utter dismay, the only listeners were a host of ghosts.The message that he attempted to pass over to the person in the house, was only reverberated back.He had kept his promise.The silence that welcomed him was only broken with the plunging hoofs of the traveller's horse as he retreated.
The lonely traveller on his horseback, reaches a lone house in the forest to deliver a message. He was greeted by a bird, which flew out of the turret above his head, when he knocked on the door.There was a tinge of eeriness. The second time he knocked louder, and shouted to find out if there was anybody in.
With no one descending the stairs, nor anyone peering over the window-sill fringed with leaves, he stood baffled and still.The air was stirred by the traveller's call. Whilst waiting for a reply, he had a strange feeling within. It was a starry night, and the thick boughs hung over.He smote on the door and shouted even louder, lifting his head giving the message to tell them that he had come; but no one answered. He shouted once again, that he had kept his word.
Every word he spoke, echoed through the still house: the sound of his foot upon the stirrup and the clank of the horses' hoofs on the stone with the retreating hoofs, leaving behind the listeners.