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I really like the poem “The Listeners” by Walter De La Mare. I was just curious to know if any of you who have read it have an idea of who the listeners might be? I get the impression that the author doesn’t exactly want you to know for sure, or else, perhaps he wants you to create your own idea of who they are? But either way, it’s interesting to think about.

Hi Thea, The Listeners by Walter De La Mare has many expressive symbols, signs, and tones within its poetic discourse that the speaker made an inner Contradictory state between traveler's knowledge, and the horror tone of silence which seems as an absurd space. On the other hand, we can see another hidden spectral world of traveler's memory which may be founded behind the phenomenal world, and its hidden relative relations with consciousness, and unconsciousness.
Thanks for the reference
Dr. Mohammed Sameer Abd Elsalam

Wow, thank you! That is very helpful! I really like that poem and so I really appreciate this insight.

Thanks Tea, your choice was very good, that the great poems affect their reader by the wide network of metaphoric, and poetic signs.
I noticed also some of concentrated narrative functions in Walter's poetic discourse, what gave the poem an aesthetic signification in its Progressive development from the inceptions of the speaker to the rhetorical silene at the end.
I hope to make many collective discussions of some great poets; like Eliot, Saint-John Perse, and Dylan Thomas. Have a great time.
Dr. Mohammed Sameer Abd Elsalam