Jonathan Houghton
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 stillWith 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 blackberries.And a boy lies in the grassNear the feet of the old man,And looks up at the sailing clouds,And longs, and longs, and longsFor what, he knows not:For manhood, for life, for the unknown world!Then thirty years passed,And the boy returned worn out by lifeAnd 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!
Words in this poem
- hesitant a.
- Not prompt in deciding or acting; hesitating. [L. haesitans, p. pr. of haesitare: cf. F. hésitant. See Hesitate.]
- midsummer n.
- The middle of summer. Shak. Midsummer daisy (Bot.), the oxeye daisy. [AS. midsumor.]
- stillness n.
- The quality or state of being still; quietness; silence; calmness; inactivity.
- roadway n.
- A road; especially, the part traveled by carriages.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Jonathan Houghton is in the public domain. This text is taken from Spoon River Anthology, Project Gutenberg ebook #1280; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edgar Lee Masters, Jonathan Houghton, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/jonathan-houghton.html, id L07893.
Form and metre
Jonathan Houghton is 24 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.6 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ---AA------------------A crow · thrush · away · hillA · stillA · stillness · chuckles · atterbury · asleep · road · blackberries · grass · man · clouds · longs · not · world · passed · life · vanished · gone · over · automobiles · hillA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There is the caw of a crow, | 7 | ······· |
| And the hesitant song of a thrush. | 9 | ··/˘˘···· |
| There is the tinkle of a cowbell far away, | 12 | ···/˘··/··˘/ |
| And the voice of a plowman on Shipley’s hill. | 11 | ·····/˘·/˘· |
| The forest beyond the orchard is still | 10 | ·/˘···/˘·· |
| With midsummer stillness; | 6 | ·//˘/˘ |
| And along the road a wagon chuckles, | 10 | ·˘/···/˘/˘ |
| Loaded with corn, going to Atterbury. | 11 | /˘··/˘·/˘·˘ |
| And an old man sits under a tree asleep, | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| And an old woman crosses the road, | 9 | ···/˘/˘·· |
| Coming from the orchard with a bucket of blackberries. | 14 | /˘··/˘··/˘·/·˘ |
| And a boy lies in the grass | 7 | ······· |
| Near the feet of the old man, | 7 | ······· |
| And looks up at the sailing clouds, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And longs, and longs, and longs | 6 | ······ |
| For what, he knows not: | 5 | ····· |
| For manhood, for life, for the unknown world! | 10 | ·/·····˘/· |
| Then thirty years passed, | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| And the boy returned worn out by life | 9 | ···˘/···· |
| And found the orchard vanished, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| And the forest gone, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| And the house made over, | 6 | ······ |
| And the roadway filled with dust from automobiles— | 12 | ··/·····/˘˘· |
| And himself desiring The Hill! | 9 | ·˘/˘/˘˘·· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.