THANKSGIVING SONG.

November, 1840.

Tune, SANDY AND JENNY.

COME, uncles and cousins; come, nieces and aunts; Come, nephews and brothers, no wonts and no cants: Put business, and shopping, and school-books away; The year has rolled round; it is Thanksgiving-day.

Come home from the college, ye ringlet-haired youth, Come home from your factories, Ann, Kate, and Ruth; From the anvil, the counter, the farm come away; Home, home, with you, home; —it is Thanksgiving-day.

The table is spread, and the dinner is dressed;
The cooks and the mothers have all done their best :
No caliph of Bagdad e'er saw such display,
Or dreamed of a treat like our Thanksgiving-day.

Pies, puddings, and custards, pigs, oysters, and nuts, — Come forward and seize them, without ifs or buts; Bring none of your slim, little appetites here; Thanksgiving-day comes only once in a year.

Thrice welcome the day in its annual round!
What treasures of love in its bosom are found!
New England's high holiday, ancient and dear!
"Twould be twice as welcome, if twice in a year.

Now children revisit the darling old place,
And brother and sister, long parted, embrace;
The family ring is united once more,

And the same voices shout at the old cottage door.

The grandfather smiles on the innocent mirth,
And blesses the Power that has guarded his hearth;
He remembers no trouble, he feels no decay,
But thinks his whole life has been Thanksgiving-day.

Then praise for the past and the present we sing,
And trustful await what the future may bring :
Let doubt and repining be banished away,
And the whole of our lives be a Thanksgiving-day.

HYMN.

FOR THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT HARVARD COLLEGE,

September 7, 1836.

GIVE praise to the God of our fathers! give praise!
At the shrine where they worshiped devoutly adore;
Kneel down, as they knelt in their perilous days,
His goodness to bless, and his favor implore.

For "Christ and the Church" they resisted and fled,

His cross for their banner, his word for their guide; On a new world the broad light of Freedom they shed, And poured through the wilderness Truth's living tide.

Then rose the high temple, the home of the soul,

And the proud hall of Science, the strength of the state, That Religion and Letters might join to control

The hearts of the young, and the toils of the great.

We praise thee, O God, for the days that are gone;
We surrender the future in faith to thy hand;
O, cloud not the hope of our new-risen dawn,
O, pour the full sunlight of day on our land!

ODE,

ON OCCASION OF THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF HARVARD COLLEGE,

September 7, 1836.

FLING wide the temple door!
The altar and the choir prepare!
Let the high chant and solemn prayer

Their holy raptures pour.

For, lo, in festal pomp arrayed,

Forth issuing from their classic shade, The sons of Science crowd the sacred floor.

O, meetly to the house of praise

The fair and ancient mother goes,

And on Religion's altar lays

The offering due to Him who all bestows.
Grateful Memory brings her treasures,
Gathered through the centuries gone;
Hope, in sweet, prophetic measures,

Hastens brighter ages on.

The solemn rites let Heaven with favor crown; The praise receive, nor on the vision frown.

Barbarian darkness dwelt

In hopeless night upon the land;

Till England's Pilgrims touched the strand,
And in the forest knelt.

Then light broke in; the kindling dawn.
Blushed on mountain, grove, and lawn;
They planted round their growing home
The classic lights of Greece and Rome;
On every hill-top bade to shine
The blessed cross of Palestine,
Blended beams of heaven and earth!
Like morning on the mountains spread,
A bright and genial day they shed,
And called the glories of New England forth.

Exalt their honored name!

Heroic founders of the state!
Inscribe their titles with the great,

Who live in deathless fame!
Nor last upon th' immortal scroll

Young Harvard's modest worth enroll;
Let his own halls resound with loud acclaim!

Through languid years of pain and gloom,
He faded slow, and early died;

Passed from the altar to the tomb,

And wrought in death the work that life denied.

Stranger in the infant nation

Where he lingered but to die,

Visions of its exaltation

Dawned on his believing eye.

Cheered by the view, serenely smiled the youth,
And gave his little all to Christ and Truth.