Walter de la Mare’s “The Empty House” presents a house sunk in shadow under huge trees. The moon seems to peer at it, almost searching for hidden secrets, but the night-wind answers that there is nothing to find: every keyhole gives a faint, sad call and receives only vacancy. A cricket’s tiny “Once, once...” briefly hints at some former life, then silence falls again. Shadows mark the passing hours, stones moulder, and the gentlest winds slowly wear away roof and wall. The speaker seems caught between curiosity and melancholy, sensing a place hollowed out by time. The mood is eerie, hushed, and heavy with absence—less about ghosts than about emptiness itself, as the darkness beneath the thick branches closes in.
The Empty House — Summary
See this house, how dark it is Beneath its vast-boughed trees! Not one trembling leaflet cries To that Watcher in the skies-- 'Remove, remove thy searching gaze, Innocent, of heaven's ways, Brood not, Moon, so wildly bright, On secrets hidden from sight.'
'Secrets,' sighs the night-wind, 'Vacancy is all I find; Every keyhole I have made Wail a summons, faint and sad, No voice ever answers me, Only vacancy.' 'Once, once...' the cricket shrills, And far and near the quiet fills With its tiny voice, and then Hush falls again.
Mute shadows creeping slow Mark how the hours go. Every stone is mouldering slow. And the least winds that blow Some minutest atom shake, Some fretting ruin make In roof and walls. How black it is Beneath these thick-boughed trees!