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 labor near us.
    We out 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.