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, 't is 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, O 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
justgrown 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.