The Listeners

(The Reading Girl by Meyer von Bremen,
1813-1886, German painter)

“I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The good ones last. A waltz which you can like only when you are waltzing is a bad waltz.” ~ C. S. Lewis, English writer of essays, poems, and novels, including The Chronicles of Narnia

THE LISTENERS

“Is there anybody there?” said the Traveler,
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 Traveler’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
“Is there anybody there?” he said.
But no one descended to the Traveler;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his gray eyes,
Where he stood perplexed 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 stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveler’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 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.

~ Walter de la Mare (1873-1956), English writer, most famous for his ghost stories and children’s poetry

Mistletoe

(Mistletoe, hand-colored engraving from
A Curious Herbal by Elizabeth Blackwell,
1707-1758, English botanical illustrator)

The mistletoe is one of the semi-parasitic plants that attach themselves to shrubs or trees. It is poisonous if ingested.

The exact source of the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe at Yuletide is not clear, but it is known that pre-Christian European cultures like the Celts, Druids, and Norsemen thought it a sacred plant and used it as a fertility symbol.

MISTLETOE

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen — and kissed me there.

~ Walter de la Mare (1873-1956), English writer, most famous for his ghost stories and children’s poetry

Now

(The Last Rose of Summer, cover of song sheet)

The passing of no other season evokes such melancholy.

NOW

The longed-for summer goes;
Dwindles away
To its last rose,
Its narrowest day.

No heaven-sweet air but must die;
Softlier float
Breathe lingeringly
Its final note.

Oh, what dull truths to tell!
Now is the all-sufficing all
Wherein to love the lovely well,
Whate’er befall.

~ Walter de la Mare (1873-1956), English writer, most famous for his ghost stories and children’s poetry

Born Yesterday, part two

This poem speaks in the voice of the new baby.

THE LITTLE BIRD

My dear Daddie bought a mansion
For to bring my Mammie to,
In a hat with a long feather,
And a trailing gown of blue;
And a company of fiddlers
And a rout of maids and men
Danced the clock round to the morning,
In a gay house-warming then.
An when all the guests were gone – and
All was still as still can be,
In from the dark ivy hopped a
Wee small bird. And that was Me.

~ Walter de la Mare (1873-1956), English writer, most famous for his ghost stories and children’s poetry