THANKSGIVING POEMS

Thanksgiving day
by Emily Dickinson

One day is there of the series
Termed Thanksgiving day,
Celebrated part at table,
Part in memory.

Neither patriarch nor pussy,
I dissect the play;
Seems it, to my hooded thinking,
Reflex holiday.

Had there been no sharp subtraction
From the early sum,
Not an acre or a caption
Where was once a room,

Not a mention, whose small pebble
Wrinkled any bay,—
Unto such, were such assembly,
'T were Thanksgiving day.

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The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England
By Felicia Dorothea Hemans
(1793-1835)

"Look now abroad--another race has fill'd

Those populous borders--wide the wood recedes,

And town shoots up, and fertile realms are till'd;

The land is full of harvests and green meads."

—BRYANT

The breaking waves dash'd high

On a stern and rock-bound coast,

And the woods against a stormy sky

Their giant branches toss'd;

And the heavy night hung dark,

The hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moor'd their bark

On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,

They, the true-hearted, came;

Not with the roll of the stirring drums,

And the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear;—

They shook the depths of the desert gloom

With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard and the sea:

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang

To the anthem of the free!

The ocean eagle soar'd

From his nest by the white wave's foam

And the rocking pines of the forest roar'd—

This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair

Amidst that pilgrim band:—

Why had they come to wither there,

Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,

Lit by her deep love's truth;

There was manhood's brow serenely high,

And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?

Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?—

They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trode.

They have left unstained, what there they found—

Freedom to worship God.

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We thank Thee...
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Lord, behold our family here assembled.
We thank Thee for this place in which we dwell;
for the love that unites us;
for the peace accorded us this day;
for the hope with which we expect the morrow;
for the health, the work, the food, and the bright skies,
that make our lives delightful;
and for our friends in all parts of the earth.
Let peace abound in our small company.

Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge.
Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere.
Give us the grace to accept and to forgive offenders.
Forgetful ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the forgetfulness of others.
Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind.
Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.

Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors.
If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come,
that we be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath,
and in all changes of fortune, and, down to the gates of death,
   loyal and loving one to another.