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 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.
~~
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
from Custer, and other poems, 1896
[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
Ella Wheeler Wilcox biography
Ms. Jones, Our Almost Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner, 2005 (cropped).
I would like to attempt a ballad one day. 8/7/8/7/8/7/8/7 meter; like this. The 7 syllable line indented, nice. Thank God for sorrow one needs faith and strength; 'spose that's a blessing. Another best to be optimistic poem despite any misgivings... to employ this attitude regardless of circumstances. To think of our life with music, in fact to make music a part of your life. To enrich one's life one has this power/ability. 💟💟💟💟💟💟
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