The First Thanksgiving Day by Henry Beer | Poem

This is not the day that I think of as the first Thanksgiving. They did give thanks for a safe journey, though, so I guess it counts as the first Thanksgiving. This poem reminds me that everyday should be a Thanksgiving.

The First Thanksgiving Day

The Pilgrims left a foreign strand 

And sailed across the main,

And landed on New England's shore,

That faith they might retain.

Some say the first Thanksgiving Day

The Pilgrims did ordain

Was when they offered thanks and praise

For life and food and grain.

It was a day of gratitude

When stormy voyage was o'er,

When they had landed safely there

On child New England's shore.

The rolling sea behind them lay,

Before them, trees of pine.

With thankful hearts they knelt in prayer

And praised God's help divine.

The Pilgrims marked the Plymouth Rock

Where they had knelt to pray. 

And still it stands memorial of

That first Thanksgiving Day.

By Henry Beer

My Garden of Verse

Page 176-177