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,
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
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. |
