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The Listeners and Other Poems
This selection of Walter de la Mare's finest dark poems -- many with fantasy and supernatural themes -- draws from such sources as The Saturday Review, The Thrush, The Pall Mall Magazine, The Odd Volume, The Lady's Realm, The English Review, The Westminster Gazette, The Commonwealth, and The Nation. Included are "The Dark Chateau," "The Witch," "The Ghost," and more.
60 pages, Paperback
Published September 27, 2007
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About the author
Walter de la Mare
521 books173 followersWalter John de la Mare was an English poet, short story writer and novelist. He is probably best remembered for his works for children, for his poem "The Listeners", and for his psychological horror short fiction, including "Seaton's Aunt" and "All Hallows". In 1921, his novel Memoirs of a Midget won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, and his post-war Collected Stories for Children won the 1947 Carnegie Medal for British children's books.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 29, 2024
Not necessarily one for me.
March 15, 2018
A nice collection of poems of which "The Listeners" is the best. The lines "'Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word,’ he said" spoken to "a host of phantom listeners" is not easily forgotten.
June 11, 2017
First read: about 12 years ago
Listen to The Listeners here: https://youtu.be/7y73wu47Uk4
One word to describe this book: haunting
Listen to The Listeners here: https://youtu.be/7y73wu47Uk4
One word to describe this book: haunting
June 11, 2018
Well, this was every bit a strange and eerie poem that every bit belongs in the class of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry.
November 13, 2020
Dark, engimatic poetry; romantic, often about death, or ghosts, or lost loves. Deeply thoughtful, quite beautiful poetry. Mysterious, ethereal. Very old fashioned.
"Haunted" was my personal favorite in this collection; it was as if Walter de la Mare was reaching across the century to speak to me. The last three in the collection were all about death, and were achingly sad. If you've experienced loss recently, these may bring you solace.
The titular poem, "The Listeners" is probably the most well known poem in the collection, and it's romantic, (to me) pre-Raphaelite setting hides a deeper meaning about a search for God and higher power, that was both moving, surprising, and thought-provoking.
"Haunted" was my personal favorite in this collection; it was as if Walter de la Mare was reaching across the century to speak to me. The last three in the collection were all about death, and were achingly sad. If you've experienced loss recently, these may bring you solace.
The titular poem, "The Listeners" is probably the most well known poem in the collection, and it's romantic, (to me) pre-Raphaelite setting hides a deeper meaning about a search for God and higher power, that was both moving, surprising, and thought-provoking.
October 1, 2020
The poem 'The Listeners' is one of de la Mare's best--evocative, ghostly, inconclusive, easy to read and to recite.
'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
It justly appears in any short sampling of his work. Several of the other poems in this collection are of that quality, mostly those of portraits of individuals: Old Susan, Old Ben, Nod the Shepherd
Softly along the road of evening,
In a twilight dim with rose,
Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew,
Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.
and, at the other end of life, Little Louisa in 'The Keys of Morning':
The thinness of his coal-black locks,
His hands so long and lean
They scarcely seemed to grasp at all
The keys that hung between:
Those poems are all at the beginning of the book, and after them the poems degenerate into unequal attempts to catch the evocative spirit.
De la Mare produced a lot of verse. If a dozen or two of his poems are memorable, that is a remarkable achievement that (almost) anyone writing verse would be proud of. And the way to reach those one or two dozen is to write down everything that occurs to you, good or bad, and then to work on it as best you can. There is no way to decide "Today I will write a good poem" and produce it unless you are already in an appropriate state of mind--inspired, or bemused as it were. But to not write when a line or thought occurs to you is to turn off the taps of creativity. So all must be written.
No one should fault a poet who has produced verse good enough to sell, when they a) continue to write material of uneven quality, b) continue to publish it. It is a good process for keeping the lines of communication open with the muse, and hopefully producing even better work in future.
As for this particular collection: I like the first 13 poems, and the title poem. I forgive the rest.
'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
It justly appears in any short sampling of his work. Several of the other poems in this collection are of that quality, mostly those of portraits of individuals: Old Susan, Old Ben, Nod the Shepherd
Softly along the road of evening,
In a twilight dim with rose,
Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew,
Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.
and, at the other end of life, Little Louisa in 'The Keys of Morning':
The thinness of his coal-black locks,
His hands so long and lean
They scarcely seemed to grasp at all
The keys that hung between:
Those poems are all at the beginning of the book, and after them the poems degenerate into unequal attempts to catch the evocative spirit.
De la Mare produced a lot of verse. If a dozen or two of his poems are memorable, that is a remarkable achievement that (almost) anyone writing verse would be proud of. And the way to reach those one or two dozen is to write down everything that occurs to you, good or bad, and then to work on it as best you can. There is no way to decide "Today I will write a good poem" and produce it unless you are already in an appropriate state of mind--inspired, or bemused as it were. But to not write when a line or thought occurs to you is to turn off the taps of creativity. So all must be written.
No one should fault a poet who has produced verse good enough to sell, when they a) continue to write material of uneven quality, b) continue to publish it. It is a good process for keeping the lines of communication open with the muse, and hopefully producing even better work in future.
As for this particular collection: I like the first 13 poems, and the title poem. I forgive the rest.
May 21, 2020
My favourite poems in the book so far are Old Susan and Old Ben. I love this book.
November 23, 2022
Poems of various lengths with rhythm and depth.
April 5, 2014
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry, ......the poem from my sixth grade still never fails to haunt me .....
Their stillness answering his cry, ......the poem from my sixth grade still never fails to haunt me .....
October 9, 2014
Such a beautiful collection, each poem tells an awe-inspiring story. I'm glad I've found this amazing book !!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews