A Poem for Thanksgiving
Many folks in the U.S. will be celebrating Thanksgiving later this week. Did you know many countries around the world have their own Thanksgiving or harvest festivals? Some of these holidays are due to American influence and others are rooted in a traditional celebration of that year’s harvest and/or its laborers.
Whatever the reason we have for celebrating Thanksgiving, I can’t think of one downside to being thankful.
I’ll be taking the rest of this week off the blog to spend time with my family. If you are celebrating Thanksgiving this week, I hope you’ll be able to spend time with your loved ones too.
In the meantime, here’s a poem for Thanksgiving that I thought was lovely.
Thanksgiving by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
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 hand 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 labor near us.
We ought to raise our notes of praise
While living hearts can hear us.
Full many a blessing wears the guise
Of worry or of trouble;
Far-seeing is the soul, and wise,
Who knows the mask is double.
But he who has the faith and strength
To thank his God for sorrow
Has found a joy without alloy
To gladden every morrow.
We ought to make the moments notes
Of happy, glad Thanksgiving;
The hours and days a silent phrase
Of music we are living.
And so the theme should swell and grow
As weeks and months pass o’er us,
And rise sublime at this good time,
A grand Thanksgiving chorus.
I love the idea of a grand Thanksgiving chorus, don’t you?
I’m thankful for each and every one of you who reads this blog. It might not seem important to you, but it means the world to me.
I’ll see you back here next Monday with a fresh, new blog post! In the meantime, you can always follow along with what we are doing via Instagram or Facebook.
Happy Thanksgiving!
If you’d like some blog posts to tide you over until next week, I’ve got you covered!
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