【注】：
1. 渥尔特‧约翰‧德拉梅尔(Walter John de la Mare，1873-1956)，是英国的诗人、短篇故事作家、及小说家。吴公子认为其最佳的诗作为1912年发表的《听者》(The Listeners)，最佳的短篇故事为1947年出版的《儿童故事集》(Collected Stories for Children)，最佳的小说为1910年出版的恐怖心理小说《回魂者》(The Return)。
2. 《听者》是德拉梅尔最著名的诗作，收录于其1912年出版的同名《听者》诗集中。原文如下：
《The Listeners》By Walter De La Mare
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ 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’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ 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.