A Thanksgiving Poem: "Five Kernels of Corn"

By Hezekiah Butterworth

‘Twas the year of the famine in Plymouth of old,

The ice and the snow from the thatched roofs had rolled;

Through the warm purple skies steered the geese o’er the seas,

And the woodpeckers tapped in the clocks of the trees;

And the boughs on the slopes to the south winds lay bare,

and dreaming of summer, the buds swelled in the air.

The pale Pilgrims welcomed each reddening morn;

There were left but for rations Five Kernels of Corn.

Five Kernels of Corn!

Five Kernels of Corn!

But to Bradford a feast were Five Kernels of Corn!

“Five Kernels of Corn! Five Kernels of Corn!

Ye people, be glad for Five Kernels of Corn!”

So Bradford cried out on bleak Burial Hill,

And the thin women stood in their doors, white and still.

“Lo, the harbor of Plymouth rolls bright in the Spring,

The maples grow red, and the wood robins sing,

The west wind is blowing, and fading the snow,

And the pleasant pines sing, and arbutuses blow.

Five Kernels of Corn!

Five Kernels of Corn!

To each one be given Five Kernels of Corn!”

O Bradford of Austerfield hast on thy way,

The west winds are blowing o’er Provincetown Bay,

The white avens bloom, but the pine domes are chill,

And new graves have furrowed Precisioners’ Hill!

“Give thanks, all ye people, the warm skies have come,

The hilltops are sunny, and green grows the holm,

And the trumpets of winds, and the white March is gone,

Five Kernels of Corn!

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