‘The Listeners’, Walter de la Mare. DPChallenge – Stylish Imitation.

TS Elliot paid homage to the poet Walter de La Mare by imitating his poetry style and writing a poem for inclusion in ‘A Tribute to Walter de la Mare’ (Faber & Faber Ltd., 1948), a book presented to him on his seventy-fifth birthday, and I can understand why.   The Listeners was the first poem I ever read and as a child with a huge imagination  it opened a world of words that spun a tale of mystery, suspense, loneliness, spirituality, intrigue and darkness.   Through the use of lush language and alliteration the poem transported me to a world of brooding undertones and atmospheric backlit dreams.    Many would argue that his verse suffers from sentimentality and an overly romantic tone  however, with this poem many also agree that in this piece of literature he was at his best.

The Listeners by  by: Walter de la Mare (b. 1873)

Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champ’d 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

Lean’d over and look’d into his grey eyes,

Where he stood perplex’d 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 stirr’d 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 starr’d and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even

Louder, and lifted his head:–

‘Tell them I came, and no one answer’d,

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

……………………………………………………….

Descriptive and evocative, language that pokes the imagination into action, a story that you return to time and time again and want to know more about.  If I could write like this I would be happy.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

My tribute to Walter De La Mare

nowhere as good as TS Elliot’s stylish imitation,  but an attempt to describe what this poem evokes for me.

………………………………………………………

In my  mind space I hear in the night

a grass green grind yon shaded edge

see deep-grained wood  lit soft by moonlight

I grieve for the stranger who kept his pledge

worry er his fate and future life

afear’d of the ghosts harkening oer the ledge

watched on by silent brooding ones

I delight in alliteration, and

relish and roll it around my tongue

I beg thee return to the shaded dell

sit by me in moonbeams on forest floor

and speak your story til I know you well.

…………………………………………………………

I still wonder what happened to the traveller

…………………………………………………………

Want to join in?  For more details see  http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/weekly-writing-challenge

 

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Tags: dpchallenge, life, literature, poetry, postaday, thoughts, Walter De La Mare, writing

• September 12, 2012
• Poetry
• 8 Comments