Thanksgiving


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by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1896)

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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 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. 

Farseeing 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.