Paraphrase the first paragraph of the poem" the listeners "
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Walter de la Mare published "The Listeners" in 1912, as the title poem of his second collection of poetry. It remains one of his most famous pieces of writing, and reflects the author's fascination with mystery and the supernatural. The poem tells the story of an unnamed Traveller approaching an abandoned house seemingly inhabited by ghosts, but leaves the reader's many questions as to who these entities actually are unanswered.
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“The Listeners” Summary
An unnamed figure, the Traveller, knocks on the door of a house in the moonlight and asks if there is anyone inside. The Traveller's horse grazes in the quiet forest while the Traveller waits for a response. A bird flies out of a small tower on the house and over the Traveller's head. The Traveller knocks again, more forcefully, and repeats his question. No one comes down from the house to meet him, however. No one even leans out of the window, the sill of which is covered in leaves, to look at him. He stands in place, puzzled by the lack of an answer.
Inside the house is a group of ghostly beings. These "listeners" stand in the moonlight as they listen to the human voice coming from outside. The ghostly beings crowd around the staircase, onto which moonlight streaks, as the quiet atmosphere in the empty house is disturbed by the sound of the Traveller's lonely voice.
Outside, the Traveller senses a strange presence in the silence that meets his question. His horse, undisturbed, continues to graze in the dark forest, the sky above full of stars and obscured by trees. The Traveller suddenly beats on the door once again, even more loudly than before. He then calls out, asking whoever is listening to pass on a message: that no one answered him when he came to the house, but he kept his promise.
The listeners don't make any motion in response to this. The Traveller's words reverberate through the dark, empty house, coming from the only living person around. The phantom listeners hear him jump up onto his horse, and then the sound of the horseshoes on the stone path as the Traveller rides away. The silence of the forest quickly returns as the sound of the horse's forceful riding fades away.