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 dismayed).
_See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better._
Alas, poor boy! he will never be better (nor, maybe, 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.

[Illustration: "Come up from the fields, father."]

But the mother needs to be better;
She, with thin form, presently dressed in black;
By day her meals untouched,--then at night fitfully sleeping, often
waking,
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,
Oh, that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life, escape and
withdraw,
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son!

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 30: By Walt Whitman, an American poet (1819-1892).]

EXPRESSION: This poem is descriptive of an incident which occurred
during the Civil War. There were many such incidents, both in the
North and in the South. Read the selection silently to understand
its full meaning. Who are the persons pictured to your imagination
after reading it? Describe the place and the time.

Now read the poem aloud, giving full expression to its pathetic
meaning. Select the most striking descriptive passage and read it.
Select the stanza which seems to you the most touching, and read
it.

Study now the peculiarities of the poem. Do the lines rime? Are
they of similar length? What can you say about the meter?

Compare this poem with the two gems from Browning, pages 38 and 41.
Compare it with the selection from Longfellow, page 54; with that
from Lanier, page 66. How does it differ from any or all of these?
What is poetry? Name three great American poets; three great
English poets.

THE ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG[31]

Fourscore and seven years ago,