Come up from the fields father, here's a letter from our Pete
And come to the front door mother, here'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 beautiful, and the farm
Prospers well
Down in the fields all prospers well
But now from the fields come father, come at the daughter's
Call
And come to the entry mother, to the front door come right
Away
Fast as she can she hurries, something ominous, her 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 son, 0 stricken
Mother's soul!
All swims before her eyes, flashes with black, she catches the
Main words only
Sentences broken, gunshot 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'd, then at night fitfully sleeping
Often waking
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep
Longing
O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape
And withdraw
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son