The Thanksgiving Sun

Our fathers were a sturdy folk,
     Who took this life in earnest;
It was no hollow sham nor joke;
     Its stuff was of the sternest.
Below them was the fiery pit,
     With sulphur-breakers spurning;
Above, a dome of glory lit
     By Mercy’s own illuming.

Between these everlasting fires
     Lay steep the road of duty,
Whose rugged rocks and knotted briers
     Left little room for beauty.
But when the golden autumn came,
     And piled the crib and larder,
Their thankful bosoms felt a flame
     Of pure religious ardor.

The cunning fiend had raised the vine
     To get his votaries drunken;
And so they made their festive sign
     The Yankee’s sober “punkin;”
And setting solemn face against
     All Popish pride of living,
Around the social board commenced
     Their beautiful Thanksgiving.

The “master” keeping school “away,”
     The ‘prentice bound to labor,
The aunts and cousins, grave or gay,
     With oft a humbler neighbor,
Flocked round the roaring chimney-side,
     And filled the house with laughter.
Where turkey came, with swelling hide,
     And pudding puffing after.

Great pies, that seemed the chariot wheels
     Of all old Pharaoh’s army,
Trundled on roasted piggie’s heels;
     And icy airs grew barmy
From loaves that o'er their dusky pans
     Rose billowing, white, and tender;
While king of all the saucy clans
     Shone cranberry's sunset splendor!

But wheeled, as planets, round their sun, 
     Though depths of distance sunk in,
The central orb of all their fun
     Was just the Yankee "punkin."
Exalt the symbol of a vine
     That bears us no deceiving, 
And hail the day its golden shine 
     Illumines for Thanksgiving.