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 black-berries. 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! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WOODSPURGE by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI SONNET: 104 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE DIRGE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH OVID TO HIS WIFE: IMITATED FROM DIFFERENT PARTS OF TRISTIA by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD SONNETS WRITTEN IN AN IRISH PRISON: HER NAME LIBERTY by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |