Edgar Lee Masters gives a roll call of the dead in a small town. A speaker stands before the hill cemetery and asks where familiar neighbors have gone—Elmer, Herman, Bert, Ella, Kate, Mag, Uncle Isaac, Old Fiddler Jones. The answer is always the same: they are all sleeping on the hill. Some died in accidents, violence, jail, childbirth, or heartbreak; some grew old; some died in war. The mood is quiet and elegiac, not angry. The repetition of “sleeping, sleeping, sleeping” makes death feel final but also strangely peaceful, as if the whole town has simply gone to bed. The speaker seems sorrowful but resigned, lingering over the way life’s struggles and roles dissolve into the same earth. Only Old Fiddler Jones, who lived joyfully on his own terms, still seems to babble with memories—but he too belongs to the hill.
The Hill — Summary
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 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, 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.