{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/the-hill",
 "title": "The Hill",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edgar Lee Masters",
 "poet_slug": "edgar-lee-masters",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Spoon River Anthology",
 "book_slug": "spoon-river-anthology",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 1,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1916,
  "venue": "Spoon River Anthology (1916)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/spoonriveranthol021mast"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/edgar-lee-masters_spoon-river-anthology",
  "file": "the-hill.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://web.archive.org/web/20080723131115/http://spoonriveranthology.net/spoon/river/originalOrder/",
   "https://archive.org/details/spoonriveranthol021mast"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 37,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 72,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All, all are sleeping on the hill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One passed in a fever,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One was burned in a mine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One was killed in a brawl,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One died in a jail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one?⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All, all are sleeping on the hill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One died in shameful child-birth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One of a thwarted love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One at the hands of a brute in a brothel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One of a broken pride, in the search for heart’s desire;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One after life in far-away London and Paris",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Where are Uncle Isaac and Aunt Emily,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And old Towny Kincaid and Sevigne Houghton,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Major Walker who had talked",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With venerable men of the revolution?⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All, all are sleeping on the hill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They brought them dead sons from the war,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And daughters whom life had crushed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And their children fatherless, crying⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where is Old Fiddler Jones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who played with life all his ninety years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Braving the sleet with bared breast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drinking, rioting, thinking neither of wife nor kin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor gold, nor love, nor heaven?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the horse-races of long ago at Clary’s Grove,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of what Abe Lincoln said",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One time at Springfield.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}