‘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 sillLeaned 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 thenStood 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 spakeFell 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.ENJOY MORE The Ceylon Press publishes a range of podcasts including The History Of Sri Lanka; the off-grid Jungle Diaries podcast; Island Stories, the podcast that explores what makes Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan; the Wild Isle Podcast: Stories from Sri Lanka’s Nature; a range of complete Audio Books about Sri Lanka; as well as Poetry from The Jungle.  All these, along with eBooks, dictionaries, guides and companions can be found at www.theceylonpress.com, based at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel in the jungle northwest of Kandy: www.flametreeestate.com.   The copyright of this podcast recording is David Swarbrick @The Ceylon Press 2025.  POETRY FROM THE JUNGLE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE COPYRIGHT CREDIT:  "The Listeners" by Walter de la Mare was first published in 1912 in the collection "The Listeners and Other Poems," and the poem is now in the public domain.

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