"A Thank-Offering"

A Thank-Offering

Lord God, the winter has been sweet and brief 

In this fair land; 

For us the budded willow and the leaf, 

The peaceful strand. 

For us the silver days and golden nights, 

The violet mist; 

The pearly clouds pierced with vibrating rays, 

Of amethyst. 

At evening, every wave of our blue sea 

Hollowed to hold 

A fragment of the sunset’s mystery— 

A fleck of gold. 

The crimson haze is on the alder trees 

In places lush; 

Already sings with sweet and lyric ease, 

The western thrush. 

Lord God, for some of us the days and years 

Have bitter been; 

For some of us the burden and the tears, 

The gnawing sin. 

For some of us, O God, the scanty store, 

The failing bin; 

For some of us the gray wolf at the door, 

The red, within!

But to the hungry Thou hast given meat, 

Hast clothed the cold; 

And Thou hast given courage strong and sweet, 

To the sad and old.

And so we thank Thee, Thou most tender God, 

For the leaf and flower; 

For the tempered winds, and quickening, velvet sod, 

And the gracious shower.

Yea, generous God, we thank Thee for this land, 

Where all are fed, 

Where at the doors no freezing beggars stand, 

Pleading for bread.

A draft of "A Thank-Offering" on onionskin paper, courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA. 

"A Thank-Offering" appears in Ella Higginson's When the Bird Goes North Again (1898).