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Poem by Edgar Lee Masters
The Hill
WHERE are Elmer, Herman, bert, Tom, and Charley, The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter? All, all, are sleeping on the hill. One passed in a fever, One was burned in a mine, One was killed in a brawl, One died in jail, One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife-- All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill. Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie, and Edith, The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one?-- All, all, are sleeping on the hill. One died in shameful child-birth, One of a thwarted love, One at the hands of a brute in a brothel, One of a broken pride, in a search for a heart's desire, One after life in faraway London and Paris Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag-- All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill. Where are Uncle Issac and Aunt Emily, And old Towny Kincaid and Sevigne Houghton, And Major Walker who had talked With veneravle men of the revolution?-- All, all, are sleeping on the hill. They brought them dead sons from the war, And daughters whom life had crushed, And their children fatherless, crying-- All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill. Where is old Fiddler Jones Who played with life all his ninety years, Braving the sleet with bared breast, Drinking, rioting, thinking neither of wife nor kin, Nor gold, nor love, nor heaven? Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago, Of the horse-races long ago at Clary's Grove, Of what Abe Lincoln said One time at Springfield.
Edgar Lee Masters
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