The harp and plow :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thanksgiving! hail thy festive cheer,
Thou day to all New-England dear!
When Labor by his mattock throws,
And gives his toil-strained nerves repose;
And Care, for want with whom to stay,
Goes off to have a holiday.
When scores of craking fowls must die,
To make the needful chicken-pie;
And turkies, twirling at the fire,
Roast, as the de'il will roast a liar;
And busy dames and lasses fair,
The Pilgrim's yearly feast prepare.
When Plenty gives from out her store
A dainty bit, to glad the poor,
And Want, with e'en his stingy grip,
Is lavish of his only fip.
When forge and smithy, shop and mill,
In Sabbath quietude are still,
And artisans of every grade
Are in their very best arrayed;

And farmers, in their homespun own,
Would scorn the wardrobe of a throne.

Thanksgiving! day of all the year!
Ancient and honored custom dear!
When foes with kindlier feelings greet;
When friends, long separated, meet
To knit anew the ties that bind
Kindred to kindred, mind to mind.
When from the towers, in morning time,
Is wafted forth the tuneful chime;
When all the true its call obey,
And tune their hearts to praise and pray,
And up to Zion's courts repair
To dwell upon God's mercies there.

To thee, thy sons, New England, whom
Fortune allures abroad to roam,
Will oft revert, in times like these,
'Cross miles of land and leagues of seas,
And o'er again in memory live
Thanksgiving's blessed day and eve.

Silent, yet swift, the stream of Time
Goes surging down to Lethe's clime;
And, swiftly as the current flows,
The Seasons pass to their repose.
Spring, from her gaudy shallop green,
Flings to the shore a flowery scene;
And Summer, from her leafy barge,
Casts forth her mantle fair and large.

Next, borne upon a northern air,
Comes Autumn with her yellow hair.
Thro' all her shrouds the breezes blow,
Now wild and shrill, now lorn and low,
Proclaiming that ‘abaft the beam,’
Comes Winter, whitening all the stream.

The FARMER, with a careful eye,
Notes each successive passing by;—
The cold may chill, the heat may pall,
Still he's abroad to welcome all;
And when, at length, as now, has come
Autumn's last moon, and ‘harvest home,’
Complacently he sees afar
In the cold north the wintry war,
And bides the advent of the storm
With thankful heart, and fireside warm.

Already has the sounding flail
Of harvest over told the tale;
The miller, o'er his hopper leaned,
With practised eye the seed has scann'd,
Declaring, as he stirs it o'er,
He scarce has seen as good before.
The flocks are gathered in their fold;
The herds protected from the cold;
The bees, within their waxen streets,
Are feasting on their treasured sweets;
And all things made secure and warm
That frost might seize upon to harm.

Now Phœbus, like a wearied wight
Who scarce can wait the coming night,
Cuts short the day, and hastes to rest,
Wrapped in the vestments of the west.
Now steals the hill-fox from his den,
Through piney wood or darksome fen;
But pausing, ere he dares to prowl,
He lists afar the watch-dog's howl
Ascending from the vale below,
And with his bark defies his foe.

And now the night-created star
Is beaming from its height afar;
And palely in the northern skies
The mystic signal-fires arise;
For in mid heaven the moon displays
Her silver lamp of bleaching rays.
Here headlong down the rocky steep
The rill descends with chainless leap,
And chafing, in its fretful course,
Talks to the night in accents hoarse;
There by the wide expanded stream
The kindling bonfires brightly gleam,
And o'er the ice the skaters glide
With rapid pace and darting stride;
While Echo on the shore has lent
Her aid to youthful merriment;
And merry bells along the road
Tell mirth is every where abroad.

Turn from the thronging streets of town
Where gas-lamps shine when suns go down,
And where, despite their magic wicks,
Full many ‘kick against the pricks.’
Turn from the sound of viols sweet,
The measured tread of tripping feet,
Where pleasure, like a night-rule born,
Dies in the rosy flush of morn.
Turn ye within the cottage walls
When evening on Thanksgiving falls,
And doff your hat, and take a chair,
And be ye ‘free and easy’ there.
No compliments are strained to please;
No forced politeness murders ease;
No boorish coarseness mars a feature
Of common sense and right good nature.

O, blessed eve, to converse given!
O, foretaste of the bliss of heaven!
There's nothing wanting but a tongue
To sing it, as it should be sung.

The fire upon the hearth-stone glows;
The circle wide before it grows;
The tale is told, the song is sung,
Wit falls unstudied from the tongue.
The thought humane is cast abroad;
The beggar on the frozen road,
The sailor on the stormy seas,
The Indian 'neath the leafless trees,

The child of Want, where'er he be,
This evening shares their sympathy,
And Pity, gentlest child of heaven,
Breaks unto these her blessed leaven.

The parents joy again to see
Their widely scattered family
At home with happy greetings meet,
Like pheasants, in secure retreat,
Whom winding horns, and coursing hounds,
Have frighted from their morning grounds;—
Who dress their plumes, no missing one,
Forgetful of the ‘slaughtering gun.’

In the arm-chair that fronts the fire,
There sits the patriarchal sire,
Dressed in his garb of youthful prime,
All for the love of olden time.
There's Christian hope and heavenly peace
In every feature of his face;
There's strength, and fields of labor won
In oak-like arms and palms of bone;
There's wisdom in his hairs of snow;
There's honor on his lofty brow;
His eyes with youthful brilliance shine,
While in his cue there's ‘auld lang syne.’

The dame, good woman, by his side,
Just fifty years, this night, a bride!—

Some angel, or good spirit other,
Paint for me this New England mother!
Reader, think of perfection human,
And you'll be thinking of the woman.
Her placid face, her tidy cap,
The clean check'd apron o'er her lap;
No friend of Fashion, like some daughters
Born midst New England's vales and waters.
Would they the fickle jade forsake
And this good grandame imitate!
The very heathen then should know
Of angels dwelling here below.

On either hand this ancient pair,
Are ranged the stalwart and the fair:
The daughter given to another
Who ‘sticketh closer than a brother,’
And with him from a distance come
To spend Thanksgiving day at home,
And let her doting parents scan
Her wee edition of a man;
The cousin, bright-eyed, buxom, merry,
Her cheeks the rose, her lips the cherry;—
(Forbidden fruit! so was the apple
That Adam easy found to grapple;)
The comely youth to manhood grown,
No man of cloth, but nerve and bone;
Of that true-hearted stock a scion,
That dauntless faced the British lion;
Such as, New England, may thy God
Forever raise upon thy sod,

And wide their gallant branches spread,
Nursed by the ashes of thy dead!

See in yon chimney corner wide
A sanguine lad, his mother's pride,
A restless, romance-loving child,
Not wholly staid, nor wholly wild,
Preparing for to-morrow's sun,
The snowy wilds, and dog and gun.
There, as the bullets swift are rolled
And glowing, from his brazen mould,
His whispers to another tell
How by his aim some victim fell;
How late the partridge he did win
Full half a furlong, in the glen;
Or how the river-fowl in spring
His bullet crippled, on the wing;
And skillful feats as strange as true,
Which he had done, and yet could do.

And here, too, is an elder son,
For years from home an absent one.
He hails from western lands afar
Where Fortune lifts her blazing star;
Backwoodsman-like he gives a zest
To all the romance of the West,
And with a spirit-stirring air
Tells of his wild adventures there;—
The hair-breadth 'scape from bloody death
What time he stopped the panther's breath;

How, camped one night beyond the border,
His bed-mate was the mas-sa-sau-der,
And dreaming of some danger nigh
He woke to hear its 'larum cry.
Or how some guardian angel's hand
Brought safe his frail canoe to land,
When in the dark and hollowed wave
The howling demon scooped his grave;
What scenes his sinking thoughts beguiled
When wildered in the dismal wild;
How the dark, pensive Indian chief
Came to him, like a drifting leaf,
In silence heard his grievous tale
And took the wanderer in his trail;
O'er mazy miles, with tireless pace,
Guided him to the wished-for place
As straight as flies the homeward bee,
Nor sought, nor would accept a fee.

And there is seen a pauvre neighbor,
Worn out with care and thriftless labor,
Invited to enjoy a treat,
And with his bitter mix a sweet.
This night his grateful heart o'erflows;
Unwonted cheer dispels his woes,
And kindly notice makes him vain—
He feels himself a man again.

His youthful days return anew,
His visions and possessions, too;
Tells what he was and might have been
Had not that nonplus come between
Himself and the desired thing,
And made a subject of a king.

Sweet vision of domestic bliss!
Hath eye seen aught surpassing this?
Could bard or painter who would dress
A scene of human happiness,
'Mongst the few patterns of the kind
Exemplar more befitting find?

Vision of Peace! beneath the tree
And palmy boughs of Liberty.
How well these social scenes contrast
With days of wo and peril past!
Befitting time—Thanksgiving Eve—
A patriot's lessons to receive!

The grandame speaks: her numbers tell
The memories which her bosom swell;
She paints afresh days long agone
When wives were left with firesides lone.
To hear the booming battle-gun
And think of husband or of son;
And wait, with longing and with fear,
Of victory or defeat to hear;
Nerving their hearts to learn that they
Were mourners from that woful day.

The grandsire is discoursing, too;
Himself one of the lingering few
Like land-marks showing, when we gaze
On revolutionary days.
A martial ardor fills his eye
When pointing back to times gone by;
For though grey-headed, just, and good,
His veins are filled with ‘soger’ blood:—
He counts his father's cuts and scars
Received in old colonial wars;
And hums the air some soldier made
When Wolfe on glory's bier was laid.
The verse uncouth, and faulty rhyme
Blend with an old heroic chime.
His father loved it for the sake
Of memories it was wont to wake,
And aye would sing it when he told
Of Wolfe so brave and Montcalm bold.

He lights his pipe; and next proceeds
With revolutionary deeds;
Which, like the man in Trojan cause,
‘He saw, and part of which he was.’
Tells many facts with interest rife
Connected with that noted strife
Ne'er honored with historic pen;
Names dates, and places, arms and men;
Tells of his feelings when his gun
He levelled first at Bennington,
And felt upon his cheek the breath
Of swift-winged messenger of death;

With feeling lingers for a time
On Andre's fate, and Arnold's crime;
And dwells upon the soldier's woes
At Valley Forge, midst winter's snows.

List to the veteran! he extends
A benediction to his friends:—
Remember, next to Heaven's Throne,
Your country claims you as her own.
To one is adoration due;
The other asks devotion true.
Thanks to the God of Battles! now
Before no other king ye bow;
No other king you'll have if ye
Do not abuse your liberty,
Nor lose in party's bitter waves
Your fathers' altar, and their graves.
New England points her every son
To Bunker's height and towering stone:
Beneath is patriotic dust;
Above the changeless God, and just;
And bids his aspiration be,
‘God and my COUNTRY, now and aye!’

Unheeded, thus the moments fly;
And every hour that dances by
Prolongs the social scene;
As when we read, and love to learn,
Each page we scan, each leaf we turn,
A new delight we glean.

The king in state upon his throne
May wish the sun in heaven gone,
May curse the wakeful moon;
Compared with him, how blest are they
To whom Time's flitting pinions play
A sweetly moving tune!

Now goes around the farmer's cheer,
Fresh from the garner of the year:—
Autumnal fruits of choicest savor,
The old brown mug of pleasant flavor;
And, lo! the Muse awakes!
Oh! reader, not the classic jade
Who serves her time, and does by trade
What nature better makes.

As when, in olden time, at feasts
Where lords were hosts, and knights were guests,
Returning from the boisterous chase,
Or battle's grim and gory place,
Around the board they drew;
Then while the banquet scene inspired,
And every loyal heart was fired
Its prowess to renew;
The bard was summoned, to prolong
The glories of the day, in song,
And of its hero tell;
And loud the plaudits, as he sung,
Among the midnight echoes rung,
And high his sounding shell.

So now around our humbler board,
Altho' no knight, or lofty lord,
Or laurel'd bard are seen;
Yet there are hearts as brave and true
As e'er from titled scions grew,—
By nature nobler, e'en.

And one who learned his harp to string
In the green fields, in time of spring,
When music from the tuneful bough
Beguiled his labors at the plough;
Who learned to strike a rural key,
When sweetly o'er the faded lea
The Autumn wind breathed slow and clear
Its requiem for the dying year,—
Essays a song; attention give
And hear the story of the eve:

A species of the rattlesnake; so called by the western Indians.