For those first tiny, prayerful-folded hands That pierce the winter's crust, and softly bring Life out of death, the endless mystery;-- For all the first sweet flushings of the Spring; The greening earth, the tender heavenly blue; The rich brown furrows gaping for the seed; For all Thy grace in bursting bud and leaf,-- The bridal sweetness of the orchard trees, Rose-tender in their coming fruitfulness; The fragrant snow-drifts flung upon the breeze; The grace and glory of the fruitless flowers, Ambrosial beauty their reward and ours; For hedgerows sweet with hawthorn and wildrose; For meadows spread with gold and gemmed with stars; For every tint of every tiniest flower; For every daisy smiling to the sun; For every bird that builds in joyous hope; For every lamb that frisks beside its dam; For every leaf that rustles in the wind; For spiring poplar, and for spreading oak; For queenly birch, and lofty swaying elm, For the great cedar's benedictory grace; For earth's ten thousand fragrant incenses,-- Sweet altar-gifts from leaf and fruit and flower; For every wondrous thing that greens and grows; For wide-spread cornlands,--billowing golden seas; For rippling stream, and white-laced waterfall; For purpling mountains; lakes like silver shields; For white-piled clouds that float against the blue; For tender green of far-off upland slopes; For fringing forests and far-gleaming spires; For those white peaks, serene and grand and still; For that deep sea--a shallow to Thy love; For round green hills, earth's full benignant breasts; For sun-chased shadows flitting o'er the plain; For gleam and gloom; for all life's counter-change; For hope that quickens under darkening skies; For all we see; for all that underlies,-- _We thank Thee, Lord_! For that sweet impulse of the coming Spring, For ripening Summer, and the harvesting; For all the rich Autumnal glories spread,-- The flaming pageant of the ripening woods; The fiery gorse, the heather-purpled hills; The rustling leaves that fly before the wind. And lie below the hedgerows whispering; For meadows silver-white with hoary dew; For sheer delight of tasting once again That first crisp breath of winter in the air; The pictured pane; the new white world without; The sparkling hedgerow's witchery of lace; The soft white flakes that fold the sleeping earth; The cold without, the cheerier warmth within; For red-heart roses in the winter snows; For all the flower and fruit of Christmas-tide; For all the glowing heart of Christmas-tide; _We thank Thee, Lord_!