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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 trellised 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 signed,
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 just-grown daughter speaks through
her sobs,
The little sisters huddle around speechless
and dismayed,)
See, dearest mother, the letter says
Pete will soon be better.
Alas poor boy, he will
never be better, (nor maybe 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 dressed in black,
By day her meals
untouched, 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.
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