With fruits of a new understanding we come to Thanksgiving,
Of being ourselves, and yet lost to ourselves, as if living
New-risen from water, we have sprung from a fountain of joy.
The gust-shaken berries are no more triumphant than we
Decrying the darkness of Winter with a scarlet flame in the sky.
The golden coracle leaves, the gilded minstrelsy
Of October robins and blackbirds, ring out a twofold praise,
The spirit and symbol one. God and the pippin, God and the maize,
God and all giving, God and His will made one.
In our hearts, in our deep rejoicing, as on the created day
In the planting of stars, in the sowing of the Milky Way,
We reap the lights of our Heaven, bind them and stack them on earth.
For this store of vision we thank Thee: for the new birth
Without end and without beginning, the leap into Life, into Thee,
We give gladness with bowed heads, rejoice upon bended knee.
Sylvia Read
(broadcast on BBC Radio, 1951)
from Harvest
Sylvia Read