There is the caw of a crow, <br />And the hesitant song of a thrush. <br />There is the tinkle of a cowbell far away, <br />And the voice of a plowman on Shipley's hill. <br />The forest beyond the orchard is still <br />With midsummer stillness; <br />And along the road a wagon chuckles, <br />Loaded with corn, going to Atterbury. <br />And an old man sits under a tree asleep, <br />And an old woman crosses the road, <br />Coming from the orchard with a bucket of blackberries. <br />And a boy lies in the grass <br />Near the feet of the old man, <br />And looks up at the sailing clouds, <br />And longs, and longs, and longs <br />For what, he knows not: <br />For manhood, for life, for the unknown world! <br />Then thirty years passed, <br />And the boy returned worn out by life <br />And found the orchard vanished, <br />And the forest gone, <br />And the house made over, <br />And the roadway filled with dust from automobiles -- <br />And himself desiring The Hill!<br /><br />Edgar Lee Masters<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/jonathan-houghton/
