Jonathan Houghton by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

There is the caw of a crow, / And the hesitant song of a thrush.

There is the tinkle of a cowbell far away, / And the voice of a plowman on Shipley's hill.

The forest beyond the orchard is still / With midsummer stillness;

And along the road a wagon chuckles, / Loaded with corn, going to Atterbury.

And an old man sits under a tree asleep, / And an old woman crosses the road, / Coming from the orchard with a bucket of blackberries.

And a boy lies in the grass / Near the feet of the old man, / And looks up at the sailing clouds, / And longs, and longs, and longs / For what, he knows not:

For manhood, for life, for the unknown world!

Then thirty years passed, / And the boy returned worn out by life / And found the orchard vanished, / And the forest gone, / And the house made over, / And the roadway filled with dust from automobiles --

And himself desiring The Hill!