Published Works

Books by Whitman

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Come Up from the Fields, Father.

1COME 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.

2Lo, '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?)

3Above 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.

4Down 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.

5Fast as she can she hurries—something ominous—
her steps trembling;

She does not tarry to smooth her hair, nor adjust her
cap;

6Open the envelope quickly;

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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.

7Ah, 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.

8Grieve not so, dear mother, (the just-grown daughter
speaks through her sobs;

The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dis-
may'd;)

See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.

9Alas, 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.

10But 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.

Distributed under a Creative Commons License. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price, editors.