A Thanksgiving Poem

The sun hath shed its kindly light,
Our harvesting is gladly o'er
Our fields have felt no killing blight,
Our bins are filled with goodly store.

From pestilence, fire, flood, and sword
We have been spared by thy decree,
And now with humble hearts, O Lord,
We come to pay our thanks to thee.

We feel that had our merits been
The measure of thy gifts to us,
We erring children, born of sin,
Might not now be rejoicing thus.

No deed of ours hath brought us grace;
When thou were nigh our sight was dull,
We hid in trembling from thy face,
But thou, O God, wert merciful.

Thy mighty hand o'er all the land
Hath still been open to bestow
Those blessings which our wants demand
From heaven, whence all blessings flow.

Thou hast, with ever watchful eye,
Looked down on us with holy care,
And from thy storehouse in the sky
Hast scattered plenty everywhere.

Then lift we up our songs of praise
To thee, O Father, good and kind;
To thee we consecrate our days;
Be thine the temple of each mind.

With incense sweet our thanks ascend;
Before thy works our powers pall;
Though we should strive years without end,
We could not thank thee for them all.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was an influential American poet, novelist, and playwright of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Dayton, Ohio, Dunbar gained national recognition for his dialectic verse and collections of poems such as 'Majors and Minors' (1895) and 'Lyrics of Lowly Life' (1896). His works often addressed themes of racial identity and struggle, making significant contributions to African American literature. Dunbar's writings served as an inspiration for later writers of the Harlem Renaissance.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

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English

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Thanksgiving Day.

God of the harvest, once again
Our joyful tones we raise,
For all Thy goodness, day by day,
We give Thee thankful praise.

With blessings rich, from fertile field,
And gifts from fruitful tree,
We wish, this day, our thanks to yield
With earnest hearts, to Thee.

We plough'd the ground, we sow'd the seed,
But Thou didst send the rain
In grateful show'rs, in time of need,
And now we've reap'd the grain.

The sun with grateful heat did shine;
The dew did nightly fall;
And now, for loaded tree and vine -
We give Thee thanks for all.

The bee, in well-fill'd honey cells,
Her sweets for us hath stow'd,
The crystal water in the wells,
For us from springs hath flow'd.

The lowing herd, the prancing steed
Receiv'd we f...

Thomas Frederick Young

Thanksgiving.

[Nov. 26, 1857, during the great financial depression.]

Father, our thanks are due to thee
For many a blessing given,
By thy paternal love and care,
From the bounty-horn of heaven.

We know that still that horn is filled
With blessings for our race,
And we calmly look thro' winter's storm
To thy benignant face.

Father, we raise our thanks to Thee,
Who seldom thanked before;
And seldom bent the stubborn knee
Thy goodness to adore:

But Father, thou hast blessings poured
On all our wayward days
And now thy mercies manifold
Have filled our hearts with praise

The winter-storm may rack and roar;
We do not fear its blast;
And we'll bear with faith and fortitude
The lot that thou hast cast.

But Father, Father...

Hanford Lennox Gordon

A Song Of Thanks

For the sun that shone at the dawn of spring,
For the flowers which bloom and the birds that sing,
For the verdant robe of the gray old earth,
For her coffers filled with their countless worth,
For the flocks which feed on a thousand hills,
For the rippling streams which turn the mills,
For the lowing herds in the lovely vale,
For the songs of gladness on the gale, -
From the Gulf and the Lakes to the Oceans' banks, -
Lord God of Hosts, we give Thee thanks!

For the farmer reaping his whitened fields,
For the bounty which the rich soil yields,
For the cooling dews and refreshing rains,
For the sun which ripens the golden grains,
For the beaded wheat and the fattened swine,
For the stallèd ox and the fruitful vine,
For the tubers large and cotton white,

Edward Smyth Jones

America's Thanksgiving

1900

Father all bountiful, in mercy bear
With this our universal voice of prayer -
    The voice that needs must be
    Upraised in thanks to Thee,
O Father, from Thy children everywhere.

A multitudinous voice, wherein we fain
Wouldst have Thee hear no lightest sob of pain -
    No murmur of distress,
    Nor moan of loneliness,
Nor drip of tears, though soft as summer rain.

And, Father, give us first to comprehend,
No ill can come from Thee; lean Thou and lend
    Us clearer sight to see
    Our boundless debt to Thee,
Since all Thy deeds are blessings, in the end.

And let us feel and know that, being Thine,
We are inheritors of hearts divine,
    And hands endowed with skill,
    And strength to work Thy will,
And ...

James Whitcomb Riley

A Thanksgiving To God For His House

Lord, Thou hast given me a cell
Wherein to dwell;
An little house, whose humble roof
Is weather-proof;
Under the spars of which I lie
Both soft and dry;
Where Thou my chamber for to ward
Hast set a guard
Of harmless thoughts, to watch and keep
Me, while I sleep.
Low is my porch as is my fate,
Both void of state;
And yet the threshold of my door
Is worn by'th' poor,
Who thither come, and freely get
Good words, or meat;
Like as my parlour, so my hall
And kitchen's small;
A little butterie and therein
A little bin,
Which keeps my little loaf of bread
Unchipp'd, unflay'd;
Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar
Make me a fire,
Close by whose living coal I sit,
And glow like it.
Lord, I confess too, when I dine,
...

Robert Herrick

Thanksgiving

We walk on starry fields of white
    And do not see the daisies;
For blessings common in our sight
    We rarely offer praises.
We sigh for some supreme delight
    To crown our lives with splendor,
And quite ignore our daily store
    Of pleasures sweet and tender.

Our cares are bold and push their way
    Upon our thought and feeling.
They hang about us all the day,
    Our time from pleasure stealing.
So unobtrusive many a joy
    We pass by and forget it,
But worry strives to own our lives
    And conquers if we let it.

There's not a day in all the year
    But holds some hidden pleasure,
And looking back, joys oft appear
    To brim the past's wide measure.
But blessings are like friends, I hold,
    Who love and labo...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox