LadyD Books: Quote It: The Corn Song

LadyD Books is invited by Freda's Voice to participate in a Saturday meme called Quote It.

Welcome to Quote It!
Please feel free to grab the button and create your own post.
Add as many quotes as you wish, from whom ever you wish. It can even be lyrics to a song.
Just tell us who it is. Anonymous welcome too.
And please leave your link at Freda's Voice

Here's mine:

"And now, with Autumn's moonlit eves,
Its harvest-time has come"

From a Thanksgiving poem called The Corn Song by John Greenleaf Whittier.

I'm always searching for Thanksgiving poems for children around this time of year. It's so easy to take a nature walk, be outdoors together, gathering all the brightly colored leaves and seed pods.

When my girls were younger, they would make Thanksgiving hats and vests out of paper bags, brightly painted by hand and proudly worn as they delivered a joke, a poem, song or skit of their choice in front of family members. In some ways, it was like a Thanksgiving recital!
I thought I would share this Thanksgiving poetry for kids in its entirety. It's a bit advanced for my 2 year old grandson but you get the idea.

Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard!
Heap high the golden corn!
No richer gift has Autumn poured
From out her lavish horn!

Let other lands, exulting, glean
The apple from the pine,
The orange from its glossy green,
The cluster from the vine;

We better love the hardy gift
Our rugged vales bestow,
To cheer us when the storm shall drift
Our harvest-fields with snow.

Through vales of grass and meads of flowers
Our plows their furrows made,
While on the hills the sun and showers
Of changeful April played.

We dropped the seed o'er hill and plain,
Beneath the sun of May,
And frightened from our sprouting grain
The robber crows away.

All through the long, bright days of June
Its leaves grew green and
fair, And waved in hot midsummer's noon
Its soft and yellow hair.

And now, with Autumn's moonlit eves,
Its harvest-time has come;
We pluck away the frosted leaves,
And bear the treasure home.

Then shame on all the proud and vain
Whose folly laughs to scorn
The blessing of our hardy grain,
Our wealth of golden corn!

Let earth withhold her goodly root,
Let mildew blight the rye,
Give to the worm the orchard's fruit,
The wheat-field to the fly;

But let the good old crop adorn
The hills our fathers trod;
Still let us, for his golden corn,
Send up our thanks to God!

Whittier does well in expressing his thoughts with the use of rhyme. I love the line that describes corn silk, "It's soft and yellow hair."

Happy Quote It Saturday. What a great meme for learning and sharing amongst fellow blogs.
-- LadyD

“You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.” — C. S. Lewis