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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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COME UP FROM THE FIELDS FATHER.
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.
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Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder, |
Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages with leaves fluttering in the
moderate wind,
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Where apples ripe in the orchards hang and grapes on the trellis'd
vines,
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(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines? |
Smell you the buckwheat where the bees were lately buzzing?) |
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Above all, lo, the sky so calm, so transparent after the rain, and
with wondrous clouds,
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Below too, all calm, all vital and beautiful, and the farm prospers
well.
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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,
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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,
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Sentences broken, gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish,
taken to hospital,
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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,
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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,)
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While they stand at home at the door he is dead already, |
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,
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In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing, |
O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape and
withdraw,
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To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son. |
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