Come Up from the Fields Father

"Come Up from the Fields Father" is a poem by Walt Whitman. It was first published in the 1865 poetry volume Drum-Taps. The poem centers around a family living on a farm in Ohio who receives a letter informing them that their son has been killed, and chronicles their grief, particularly that of the boy's mother. It was one of his most frequently anthologized poems during his lifetime, and resonated with many Americans who had experienced the death of family members in the Civil War.

"Come Up from the Fields Father" continued to appear in anthologies after Whitman's death—though it has not received much critical attention. Scholars who have analyzed it have noted the sharp contrast between the letter the family expected to open and the one they got informing them of their son's death, the harshness of war imposing on the tranquility of an Ohio farm, and the absence felt throughout the poem, from the family's son to his father, who, despite being the subject of the poem is not its focus.