4. Discuss the role of the 'horse' and the 'bird in the poem and argue if their presence added to the mystery or rather helped the traveller in that eerie atmosphere.
Answers
Answer:
The Traveler is knocking on a door at night. Space is said to be lit by “moonli[ght]” and filled with silence. These few describing phrases paint an immediate picture of the scene. A reader will be able to imagine the door, the sky, and the sound of the “horse” as it “champed the grasses.” This sound would be deafening in the silence.
The reader should feel the tense expectations of the Traveler as he waits to see if someone will open the door. The noise of the horse’s hooves on the ground is emphasized by the fact that they are standing on “the forest’s ferny floor.”
The environment they are in is covered in plants. This leads a reader to the supposition that the Travellers is not somewhere very industrialized. The landscape is primarily natural. As if hoping to prove this is the case, a bird is described as flying out of the “turret.”