1
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.
2
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.
3
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 smoothe 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—O stricken mother’s soul!
All swims before her eyes—flashes with black—she catches the main words only;
Sentences broken—gun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to
hospital,
At present low, but will soon be better.
4
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.
5
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.
why it is good? i think the writer foucuse the commen peope succesfully by dipict the surroundings and the feelings of old couple,it is so real that all the readers may sympathy. maybe we all chrish such a feeling that what willwe do if we lose the loved onesof our family,the auther just trigered our feelings.
I’ve been studying on Walt Whitman for a While and I think this is one of the best poems of him about Civil War.
This is good and to the point. Even though it is long, I love it.
i like walt
Whitman is a very talented writer, and i am very grateful to read his poems. His work is very admireable.
I was in high school when i read this poem for the first time. i really like it and i always read it once in a while. It really is very sentimental, especially for those parents who have lost a child.
walt is good