The Challis messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1912-current, 1918-01-02
AS SUNG BY POETS
Old and New Thanksgiving
Sentiments Worth
Recording.
AbLNDRANATH TAGORE, the
Hindu-English poet, recently

n AB1NDRANATH TAGORE, the
dlhdu-English poet, recently
contributed to the London
Times the following verses on
Thanksgiving" which are as unlike
the conventional Thanksgiving poem
In sentiment as they are in form:
Those who walk on the path Of pd,e
crushing the lowly life under their read.
spreading their footprints in blood
upon the tender green of thy earts
Let them rejoice, and thank thee. Lord.
for the day Is theirs
But thou hast done we'll in leaving ,ne
with the humble
whose doom 1t is to suffer
and bear the burden Of power,
ana hide their faces and stife their 81 b.
in the dark.
For every throb Of their pain
night,
and every insult has been gathered
In thy great silence,
And the morrow is theirs
o Sun. rise upon the bleeding hearts
and the torchlight revelry Of pride
hicing in Its own aisles.
There is. Of course. nothing new in
dissent from that SNUG piety that re-
turns thanks because it's possessor is
not as other men are" be it in world
~ possessions, in bodily health, in
mental equipment or even in moral
inheritance. Robert Burns long ago
saurized one aspect of such self-com-
placence in THE Selkirk Grace:
Some hae meat and Gamma eat,
And some wad eat that want It;
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sac the Lord be thankit,
William Blake, In one of those
quantity phrased little poems Of his
that have almost the flavor Of esoteric
wisdom, declares:
Since all the riches Of this world
May be gifts from the devil and earthly
kings.
I should suspect that I worshiped the
devil
If I thanked my God for worldly things.
The countless gold Of a merry heart,
The rubies and pearls Of loving eye,
The ideal man never can bring to the
mart,
Nor the cunning hoard up in his treas
ury.
And in recent years Edmund Vance
Cooke. poet of whom Cleveland, the
sixth city," should be proud. has
sung:
We thank thee. Yea, in the even tone
OF those who are glad Of the goods they
We thank thee. Yea, that thou hast pre-
And blessed Us more than the common
herd.
We thank thee, part with the hearts in
tention.
But most. let US own. with the lips con.
vention.
I've thank thee" Lord! What selfish
prayer.
Thanks-while beggar's breast Is bare.
Thanks that our own full feas, is spread
While another creature is lacking bread,
Thanks that our full fed blood runs warm.
While sta.veling baby breasts the
storm.
There is certainly no faint Of Tar
tuffe or Pecksnin in the reason that
William Ernest Henley gives for
,hankfulness in his "Invictus," but It
has something Of pharisaical AFRO
gance Notwithstanding:
Out Of the night that covers me.
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my uneonouerable soul
Algernon Charles Swinburne. in
The Garden Of Proserpine" (from
which. by the way. Henley seems to
have borrowed his whatever gods
may beO, expresses a sentiment that
in certain moods has an appeal to
many men:
From too much love Of living.
From hope and fear set free.
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives forever.
That dead men rise up never.
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea
But. after all. there Is a healthier
appeal than Swinburne's. and an ap-
peal to a greater number Of normal
men and women. In such fine odes as
that which the late Hezekiah Butter.
worth wrote in celebration Of the first
Thanksgiving in Boston Harbor":
The Arabelia leads the song
The Mayfiower sings below.
That erst the Pilgrims bore along
The Plymouth reefs Of snow,
Oh. never be that psalm forgot
That rose DER Boston Bay.
When Winthrop sang, and Endicott
And Saltonstall that day:
praise ye the Lord with fervene Npol
Praise ye the Lord today
And praise arose from all the sktpo
Ike prayars In Yarmouth Bay.