Read "Thanksgiving" by James Whitcomb Riley online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Let us be thankful -- not only because / Since last our universal thanks were told / We have grown greater in the world's applause, / And fortune's newer smiles surpass the old --
But thankful for all things that come as alms / From out the open hand of Providence: -- / The winter clouds and storms -- -the summer calms -- / The sleepless dread -- the drowse of indolence.
Let us be thankful -- thankful for the prayers / Whose gracious answers were long, long delayed, / That they might fall upon us unawares, / And bless us, as in greater need, we prayed.
Let us be thankful for the loyal hand / That love held out in welcome to our own, / When love and only love could understand / The need of touches we had never known.
Let us be thankful for the longing eyes / That gave their secret to us as they wept, / Yet in return found, with a sweet surprise, / Love's touch upon their lids, and, smiling, slept.
And let us, too, be thankful that the tears / Of sorrow have not all been drained away, / That through them still, for all the coming years, / We may look on the dead face of To-day.