Hill, The, by the American poet Edgar Lee Masters, is a poem from the author’s most famous work, Spoon River Anthology. Masters’s anthology is a collection of verses about the inhabitants of a fictitious community called Spoon River. It is based on the towns of Petersburg and Lewistown, Illinois, where Masters grew up. Masters was influenced by the verses and epigrams (short witty statements) of the ancient Greeks. He decided to compose a series of epitaphs, or tomb inscriptions, as if written by characters from the grave. The result, published in 1915, was a portrait of life in small-town Midwestern America. It caused a sensation when it was published. Masters then expanded his anthology in 1916 to include a total of 243 individual epitaphs. “The Hill,” also added in 1916, serves as the book’s prologue.
“The Hill” introduces many of the characters from Spoon River, suggesting the wide range of lives that Masters will describe. It is a frank, realistic portrait, hinting at murder, illness, scandal, and unhappiness. The aspect that unifies the characters of the poem is death—all are now in their graves, “sleeping on 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 a 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 a shameful child-birth, One of a thwarted love, One at the hands of a brute in a brothel, One of a broken pride, in the search for heart’s desire, One after life in far-away London and Paris Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag— All, all are sleeping, sleeping on the hill. Where are Uncle Isaac and Aunt Emily, And old Towny Kincaid and Sevigne Houghton, And Major Walker who had talked With venerable 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 of long ago at Clary’s Grove, Of what Abe Lincoln said One time at Springfield.
This poem, like the rest in Spoon River Anthology, is written in free verse, poetry which has no set meter or rhyme scheme. Masters also uses deliberately plain, direct language that reflects the realities of the ordinary lives he depicts.
The Spoon River epitaphs also follow the classical precision and conciseness of the author’s Greek models. Masters reports only the essential facts about each character, using a particular, telling detail to illustrate the essence of a person’s life. The ability to crystallize a human experience in a few words is one of the poet’s greatest skills. Masters demonstrates this ability throughout the numerous and varied verses of Spoon River Anthology.
Edgar Lee Masters did not repeat the success he achieved with his Spoon River poems. Although he wrote prolifically for many more years, Masters had done his best work by 1916. Despite his fame during his lifetime, Masters’s reputation has declined since. His body of work suffers by comparison to the great poets writing at the same time, such as T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Yet the Spoon River Anthology has maintained a special place in the history of American poetry.
For more information about Masters, see Masters, Edgar Lee. See also American literature (Realist poetry).
