For most of that time, I only knew the melody and the first few lines:

Come, ye thankful people, come,
raise the song of harvest-home
all is safely gathered in,
ere the winter storms begin:

But there was something in it—a sense of people hunkering down against a dark storm but within a warm and glowing place—that raised in me a peculiar combination of melancholy and hope. I don’t know when I first heard it. Perhaps in church when I was very young. Perhaps in grade school in the music classes where we sang many things, or in our regular classes where I’m sure I tried to use safety scissors to cut out silhouettes of turkeys and Pilgrims, and maybe even an Indian or two. And where, Supreme Court notwithstanding, the teachers slipped Christianity in on a more than occasional basis.

I do remember that in high school, out in the car alone one windy autumn night, I heard a big choir singing it through one of those weird miracles of AM radio. I was stunned. That’s when the sound of it really and thoroughly bit into my soul.

Somewhere in time I got the second line a bit wrong, singing to myself

”raise the hope of a harvest home

Yes, that probably did accompany my turn to a somewhat less comforting worldview. It’s an autumnal one , though not truly pessimistic. (I’ve always liked autumn.) I think its substance is well expressed by this poem.

I don’t know who is right about the history of thanksgiving, but I do know that the idea of Thanksgiving, whether for an individual, a family, or a nation is a good one because thankfulness is healing, whether it is directed to God, the fates, or random tricks of light.

Whether your miracles be random or god sent, have a good Thanksgiving, a good weekend. And may moments of joy and thankfulness touch you when you need it most, even if you are taking your shoes off for a second time at the airport.

Peace

Oscar Chamberlain - 11/28/2005

Interesting article. Thanks

I had also noted the shift in the later verses toward the Second Coming. While I might prefer different sentiments, for the devout the promise of Christ's reign as the true and final refuge follows fairly naturally from the images of the more human refuge of food and warmth in winter.

David Nicholas Harley - 11/27/2005

Interesting little discussion of the hymn from an English parish magazine

http://www.stpetersnottingham.org/hymns/thankful.htm