HOLiDAY TiDiNGS from Thanksgiving Poems

H A P P Y   T H A N K S G i V i N G

Selected by Myra Cohn Livingston
Illustrated by Stephen Gammell

At the First Thanksgiving

Plymouth, 1621

From friendly Squanto, wise in all things wild,

      We found out where the fattest codfish flash.

      To mingle beans and corn in succotash

We learned. We learned as though we were one child.

Today we lay our feast on maple planks

      Before Chief Massasoit and ninety braves.

      Now out of barrels bound by stout oak staves

We draw a drink to raise in heartfelt thanks

For turkeycock, ripe pumpkin, squash, and gourd,

     For stalks that stand all ears in heavy row,

     For fallow deer that round the woodlands go---

Praise to thee, Lord!

By winter winds whose edges carve like knives

     Our numbers have been pared.

     Now we who have been spared

Thank the Good Lord who took but half our lives.

           X. J. Kennedy

Thanksgiving Poems, back cover

Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands,

Serve the Lord with gladness:

Come before his presence with singing.

Know ye that the Lord he is God:

It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves;

We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving,

And into his courts with praise:

Be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting;

And his truth endureth to all generations.

          Psalm 100 

          The Bible, King James Version

from Jake O'Leary's Thanksgiving

When Jake O'Leary

Thanksgiving Day

Was having lunch

With his Auntie Mae

And later on

When dessert came by

Was given his private

Pumpkin pie

And hated the filling,

Hated the crust

And couldn't eat it

And knew he must . . .

In order to get it 

Out of sight,

He gobbled the pie

In ONE BIG BITE.

He forced himself

(As a person does)

To thank his auntie

Whose pie it was,

And off she hurried

On flying feet

And brought him another

Pie to eat.

          Kaye Starbird

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X. J. Kennedy (known to his friends as Joe) was born in Dover, N. J., on August 21, 1929, shortly before the crash of the stock market. Irked by the hardship of having the name of Joseph Kennedy, he stuck the X on and has been stuck with it ever since. In the spring of 2009 the Poetry Society of America gave him the Robert Frost Medal for lifetime service to poetry. The Kennedys have five grown children and six grandchildren. They now live in Lexington, Mass., in a house half century-old and half new.

Kaye Starbird was born into a distinguished Army family in Fort Sill, Oklahoma in 1916. Her poetry and prose have been published in a variety of magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly and The American Mercury. She is the author of four volumes of poetry for children, including Don't Ever Cross a Crocodile, and A Snail's a Failure Socially. She died in 1993.

Myra Cohn Livingston was the recipient of the 1980 Excellence in Poetry Award from the National Council of Teachers of English. She has received critical acclaim for her poetry and her many anthologies. She was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1926, and lived in Texas and California. For over twenty years she taught at the University of California at Los Angeles. She was living in Beverly Hills, CA when she passed away in 1996.

Stephen Gammell is a very popular artist with today's youth, mostly because of his wonderfully frightening images for books such as Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. His illustrations for Where the Buffaloes Begin received the 1981 Caldecott Honor Award.  In 1989 he was awarded the Caldecott Medal for his pictures in Song and Dance Man by Karen Ackerman. Mr. Gammell lives with his wife in St. Paul, Minnesota.






Thanksgiving Poems, Holiday House, New York, 1985

This title is out of print. If you are interested in obtaining a copy of this book then try Better World Books online or other used book sources.

"At the First Thanksgiving, Plymouth 1621" is included here by permission of the author, from The Kite That Braved Old Orchard Beach (Margaret K. McElderry Books / Macmillan), copyright (c) 1991 by X. J. Kennedy


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HOLiDAY TiDiNGS is a continuing series of articles for this blog that will focus on poetry written for or appropriate to a specific holiday.

HOLiDAY TiDiNGS, Poetry for Halloween

Cover art by Stephen Gammell for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz




A sampling of haunted classic rhymes 
for the Halloween season:



When the Night Wind Howls

When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls,
And the bat in the moonlight flies,
And inky clouds, like funeral shrouds,
Sail over the midnight skies,
When the footpads quail at the night bird's wail,
And black dogs bay at the moon,
Then is the spectres' holiday--
Then is the ghosts' high noon!
For then is the ghosts' high noon,
High noon----, then is the ghosts' high noon!

As the sob of the breeze sweeps over the trees
And the mists lie low on the fen,
From grey tombstones are gathered the bones
That once were women and men,
And away they go, with a mop and a mow,
To the revel that ends too soon,
For cock crow limits our holiday,
The dead of the night's high noon!
The dead of the night's high noon!
High noon----, the dead of the night's high noon!

And then each ghost with his lady toast
To their church-yard beds take flight,
With a kiss, perhaps, on her lantern chaps,
And a grisly grim "goodnight!"
Till the welcome knell of the midnight bell
Rings forth its jolliest tune,
And ushers in our next high holiday,
The dead of the night's high noon!
The dead of the night's high noon!
High noon----, the dead of the night's high noon!

                                                 W. S. Gilbert, from Ruddigore

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"Who's In the Next Room?"


       "Who's in the next room?---who?
             I seemed to see
Somebody in the dawning passing through,
             Unknown to me."
"Nay: you saw nought. He passed invisibly."

        "Who's in the next room?---who?
              I seem to hear
Somebody uttering firm in a language new
              That chills the ear."
"No: you catch not his tongue who has entered there."

       "Who's in the next room?---who?
              I seem to feel
His breath like a clammy draught, as if it drew
              From the Polar Wheel."
"No: none who breathes at all does the door conceal."

       "Who's in the next room?---who?
             A figure wan
With a message to one in there of something due?
             Shall I know him anon?"
"Yea he; and he brought such; and you'll know him anon."

                                                                   Thomas Hardy


________________

The Phantom Horsewoman

                                  I

Queer are the ways of a man I know:

             He comes and stands

             In a careworn craze,

             And looks at the sands

             And the seaward haze

             With moveless hands

             And face and gaze,

             Then turns to go...

And what does he see when he gazes so?

                                  II

They say he sees as an instant thing

             More clear than to-day,

             A sweet soft scene

             That once was in play

             By that briny green;

             Yes, notes alway

             Warm, real, and keen,

             What his back years bring—

A phantom of his own figuring.

                                  III

Of this vision of his they might say more:

             Not only there

             Does he see this sight,

             But everywhere

             In his brain–day, night,

             As if on the air

             It were drawn rose bright–

             Yea, far from that shore

Does he carry this vision of heretofore:

                                  IV

A ghost-girl-rider. And though, toil-tried,

             He withers daily,

             Time touches her not,

             But she still rides gaily

             In his rapt thought

             On that shagged and shaly

             Atlantic spot,

             And as when first eyed

Draws rein and sings to the swing of the tide.

                                                         Thomas Hardy

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Double, Double Toil and Trouble

From: Macbeth, ACT IV

SCENE I. A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.

Thunder. Enter the three Witches

First Witch

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

Second Witch

Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

Third Witch

Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time.

First Witch

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Third Witch

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch

Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

                                  William Shakespeare

__________________

The Hag     The Hag is astride,     This night for to ride; The Devill and shee together:     Through thick, and through thin,     Now out, and then in, Though ne’r so foule be the weather.     A Thorn or a Burr     She takes for a Spurre: With a lash of a Bramble she rides now,     Through Brakes and through Bryars,     O’re Ditches, and Mires, She followes the Spirit that guides now.     No Beast, for his food,     Dares now range the wood; But husht in his laire he lies lurking:     While mischiefs, by these,     On Land and on Seas, At noone of Night are working,     The storme will arise,     And trouble the skies; This night, and more for the wonder,     The ghost from the Tomb     Affrighted shall come, Cal’d out by the clap of the Thunder.                                       Robert Herrick (1648)

__________________

Stephen Gammell

Stephen Gammell is a very popular artist with today's youth because of his wonderfully frightening images for Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.  His illustrations for Where the Buffaloes Begin received the 1981 Caldecott Honor Award.  In 1989 he was awarded the Caldecott Medal for his pictures in Song and Dance Man by Karen Ackerman. Mr. Gammell lives with his wife in St. Paul, Minnesota.




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If you are interested in more poems for the Halloween season, then here is a marvelous collection of haunting poetry that I recommend: WHY AM I GROWN SO COLD? Poems of the Unknowable, edited by Myra Cohn Livingston, A Margaret K. McElderry Book, Atheneum, New York, 1982.


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HOLiDAY TiDiNGS is a continuing series of articles for this blog that will focus on poetry written for or appropriate to a specific holiday.