Shel Silverstein

Enter This Deserted House

Enter This Deserted House - meaning Summary

Shared Imaginative Dwelling

The poem invites a listener into a whimsical, open 'house' where nature and fantasy coexist. Each stanza lists creatures and natural elements—frogs, jays, flowers, bats, gnomes—creating a playful, sensory landscape. The speaker asks for gentle movement and reveals a final intimacy: both speaker and child inhabit this imaginative space. Themes include belonging, shared imagination, and the porous boundary between real and fantastical worlds.

Read Complete Analyses

But please walk softly as you do. Frogs dwell here and crickets too. Ain't no ceiling, only blue. Jays dwell here and sunbeams too. Floors are flowers - take a few Ferns grow here and daisies too. Swoosh, whoosh - too-whit, too-woo Bats dwell here and hoot owls too. Ha-ha-ha, hee-hee, hoo-hoooo, Gnomes dwell here and goblins too. And my child, I thought you knew I dwell here... and so do you

default user
PoetryVerse just now

Feel free to be first to leave comment.

8/2200 - 0