Lingua   

Come Up From the Fields Father

Walt Whitman
Lingua: Inglese


Walt Whitman


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.‎



Pagina principale CCG

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