The Listeners by Walter De La Mare
Public Domain, link copied from
‘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.
–\\\\\–
Well, here I am again. I tried to give up this bad habit of paying good money to people so I could write things for other people to read. I managed to successfully stop it a few years ago with respect to what I had come to think of as the loathsome Facebook . In this comeback posting, I begin by quoting someone else’s poetry, maybe as a way of trying to explain myself.
Last year I committed myself to discontinuing this WordPress chronicle. I had written about the things I thought about and worried about; I wrote about my church and its internal debates over social principles; I wrote about my community’s fine arts council and its theater programs, and, in general, many things that are not of interest to most readers. Besides, what do I really have to say about political issues that has not already either been born or batted around online? I read the opinion pages in national papers and I know that there are many better educated and informed people saying the things that needed to be said regarding our civic lives. Saying it all here seemed to benefit no one but myself and an irrepressible egotistical desire to attract attention. I let my subscription to the service run out. But then I wavered again.
WordPress gave me another chance to re-up, as online services almost always do. And I did. I renewed the service and will be here at least through April of 2027. So why did I decide to continue?
Most importantly WordPress emphasizes content rather than user relationships. As I remember it, people typically used Facebook posts to craft a story of their lives as they wanted friends to see them: wealthier than they really are, cooler than they really are and more well read than they really are. And, of course, kinder than they really are to their precious pets which are presented as cuter than they really are. And they undoubtedly wanted you to see it and ‘friend’ them or give them a ‘like’.
It would be disingenuous to say that I am not interested in presenting my life as one of distinction. People who know me know that I try to post things I have spent some time thinking about not just what I had for breakfast, or the cute thing my cat, kid or dog did nor my immediate reaction to what I saw on the evening news or picked up online. I do my very best (most of the time) to say something I really need to say because of its informational or moral relevance for readers and all the people in this world we share.
I don’t fish for readers. What I think about and write is here for anyone who reads it. In fact, I heard a little poem today on the podcast Poetry Unbound. The title is “The Listeners.” It is in the public domain and I led this discussion with it.
When I read the Walter De La Mare poem, I see myself as the Traveller as I send these chronicles out to phantom listeners (readers). And you would be one of them. Not just to you, but to that phantom being we call a soul. Whatever it is that I need to say, it is of ultimate concern to me and it is my responsibility to let anyone within reach of my voice know that I came and that I kept my word. These are things I must say because it is a duty of citizens to speak and, especially, of things that constitute one’s ultimate concerns.
If no one answers my knock, still, I am keeping my word. It is important to me to come calling on you because I have been feeling lately a gnawing at my soul: the world is rotting all around me and people who see something must say something.
Is anybody there? May my soul speak with yours?
South of Town: Notes and Scenes from Texas' Upper Gulf Coast 