THANKSGIVING HYMN.
(Air—"America.")
O thou, whose eye of love
Looks on us from above
Low at thy throne
We come to thee and pray
That, gleaning clay by day.
Our grateful hearts alway
Thy hand may own.
Thine are the waving fields,
Thy hand the harness yields;
And unto thee
To whom for rain and dew.
And skies of sunny blue,
Our love and praise are due,
We bend the knee.
And when beneath the trees
In fairer fields than these
Our glad feet roam,
There where the bright harps ring,
May we our gleanings bring,
And in thy presence sing
Our harvest home.
THE PUMPKIN.
(On receipt of a pumpkin pie.)
Ah! on Thanksgiving Day when from east and from west,
From north and from south come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored.
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,—
What moistens the lip and brightens the eye.
What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?
Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling.
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling;
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within;
When we laughed round the corn heap, with hearts all in tune
Our chair a broad pumpkin, our lantern the moon,—
Telling tales of the fairy who traveled like steam.
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team.
Then thanks for thy present; none sweeter or better
E'er smoked from an oven or circled a .platter.
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking than thine.
And the prayer which my mouth is too full to express.
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below.
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin vine grow,
And thy life be as sweet and its last sunset sky
Golden tinted and fair as thy own pumpkin pie!
