Page 13 - Demo
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                                    15  The Listeners %u2018Is there anybody there?%u2019 said the Traveller,  Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses  Of the forest%u2019s ferny floor: And a bird flew up out of the turret,  Above the Traveller%u2019s head: And he smote upon the door again a second time;  %u2018Is there anybody there?%u2019 he said. But no one descended to the Traveller;  No head from the leaf-fringed sill Leaned 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 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 Traveller%u2019s call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness,  Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,  %u2019Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote on the door, even  Louder, and lifted his head:%u2014 %u2018Tell them I came, and no one answered,  That I kept my word,%u2019 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.  By Walter De La Mere. 
                                
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