object:1.whitman - Come Up From The Fields, Father
author class:Walt Whitman
subject class:Poetry
book class:Whitman - Poems
class:chapter
COME up from the fields, father, here's a letter from our Pete;
And come to the front door, motherhere's a letter from thy dear
son.
Lo, 'tis autumn;
Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,
Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages, with leaves fluttering in the
moderate wind;
Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the trellis'd
vines;
(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?
Smell you the buckwheat, where the bees were lately buzzing?)
Above all, lo, the sky, so calm, so transparent after the rain, and
with wondrous clouds;
Below, too, all calm, all vital and beautifuland the farm prospers
well.
Down in the fields all prospers well;
But now from the fields come, fathercome at the daughter's call;
And come to the entry, motherto the front door come, right away.
Fast as she can she hurriessomething ominousher steps trembling;
She does not tarry to smooth her hair, nor adjust her cap.
Open the envelope quickly;
O this is not our son's writing, yet his name is sign'd;
O a strange hand writes for our dear sonO stricken mother's soul!
All swims before her eyesflashes with blackshe catches the main
words only;
Sentences brokengun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish,
taken to hospital,
At present low, but will soon be better.
Ah, now, the single figure to me,
Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio, with all its cities and farms,
Sickly white in the face, and dull in the head, very faint,
By the jamb of a door leans.
Grieve not so, dear mother, (the just-grown daughter speaks through
her sobs;
The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dismay'd
See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.
Alas, poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be needs to be
better, that brave and simple soul
While they stand at home at the door, he is dead already;
The only son is dead.
But the mother needs to be better;
She, with thin form, presently drest in black;
By day her meals untouch'dthen at night fitfully sleeping, often
waking,
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,
O that she might withdraw unnoticedsilent from life, escape and
withdraw,
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.
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