✦ A Classic Poem ✦
Someone came knocking at my wee, small door. But when I opened it, there was only the beetle, the screech-owl, and the cricket in the still dark night.
Read aloud by Storyland Classics ✦ 1 min 23 sec ✦ Watch on YouTube
✦ The Poem ✦
by Walter de la Mare, from Peacock Pie (1913). Public domain in the United States.
Someone came knocking At my wee, small door; Someone came knocking; I’m sure—sure—sure; I listened, I opened, I looked to left and right, But naught there was a-stirring In the still dark night; Only the busy beetle Tap-tapping in the wall, Only from the forest The screech-owl’s call, Only the cricket whistling While the dewdrops fall, So I know not who came knocking, At all, at all, at all.
✦ About the Poem ✦
Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) was an English poet famous for quiet, dreamlike poems full of moonlight, mystery, and small sounds in the night. Peacock Pie, his 1913 book of rhymes for children, has never gone out of print.
This poem is a small mystery that is never solved. Someone knocked, but when the door opens there are only the gentle sounds of night: a beetle, an owl, a cricket. It is spooky in the softest way, and children love to knock along with the first lines.
✦ Talk About It ✦