"Is there anybody there? " said the Traveler, And his horse in the silence champed the grasses And a bird flew up out of the turret, And he smote upon the door again a second time; But no one descended to the Traveler; Leaned over and looked into his gray eyes, But only a host of phantom listeners Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight Stood thronging, the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken And he felt in his heart their strangeness, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, For he suddenly smote on the door, even "Tell them I came, and no one answered, Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And how the silence surged softly backward, |