It is only sixteen short lines long, lines compact of tragedy, simplicity and double meaning....For sheer artistry, this poem has no superior in our literature.
--Alfred Kreymborg on "The Son" by Ridgely Torrence
The Son
Southern Ohio Market Town
I heard an old farm-wife,
Selling some barley,
Mingle her life with life
And the name “Charley.”
Saying: “The crop’s all in,
We’re about through now;
Long nights will soon begin,
We’re just us two now.
“Twelve bushel at sixty cents,
It’s all I carried—
He sickened making fence;
He was to be married—
“It feels like frost was near—
His hair was curly.
The spring was late that year,
But the harvest early.”
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