VIII. MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN BY WALT WHITMAN.

253

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.


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.


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,
254 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 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.


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.
255 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.