TO THE QUIET OBSERVER
ERASMUS WILSON, AFTER HIS LONG SILENCE
Dear old friend of us all in need
Who know the worth of a friend indeed,
How rejoiced are we all to learn
Of your glad return.
We who have missed your voice so long—
Even as March might miss the song
Of the sugar-bird in the maples when
They're tapped again.
Even as the memory of these
Blended sweets,—the sap of the trees
And the song of the birds, and the old camp too,
We think of you.
Hail to you, then, with welcomes deep
As grateful hearts may laugh or weep!—
You give us not only the bird that sings,
But all good things.
AMERICA'S THANKSGIVING
900
Father all bountiful, in mercy bear
With this our universal voice of prayer—
The voice that needs must be
Upraised in thanks to Thee,
O Father, from Thy Children everywhere.
A multitudinous voice, wherein we fain
Wouldst have Thee hear no lightest sob of pain—
No murmur of distress,
Nor moan of loneliness,
Nor drip of tears, though soft as summer rain.
And, Father, give us first to comprehend,
No ill can come from Thee; lean Thou and lend
Us clearer sight to see
Our boundless debt to Thee,
Since all thy deeds are blessings, in the end.