Every Day Thanksgiving Day by Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford

Sweet it is to see the sun
Shining on Thanksgiving Day,
Sweet it is to see the snow
Fall as if it came to stay;
Sweet is everything that comes.
For all makes cheer, Thanksgiving Day.

Fine is the pantry’s goodly store.
And fine the heaping dish and tray;
Fine the church-bells ringing; fine
All the dinners’ great array.
Things we’d hardly dare to touch.
Were it not Thanksgiving Day.

Dear the people coming home,
Dear glad faces long away.
Dear the merry cries, and dear
All the glad and happy play.
Dear the thanks, too, that we give
For all of this Thanksgiving Day.

But sweeter, finer, dearer far
It well might be if on our way.
With love for all, with thanks to Heaven,
We did not wait for time’s delay.
But, with remembered blessings then
Made every day Thanksgiving Day.

From: Committee of the Carnegie Library School Association, Thanksgiving in Poetry, 1923, The H. Wilson Company: New York, p. 27.
(https://archive.org/details/thanksgivinginpo00carn/page/n61/mode/2up)

Date: 1881

By: Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford (1835-1921)

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Tags: 1881, every day thanksgiving day, harriet elizabeth prescott spofford, poetry, sweet it is to see the sun