Does it thrill you to remember When it stood against the sky, How your heart was like an ember And a tear was in your eye? How the old flag thrilled your spirit, How it made you feel at home, When your ship that day sailed near it On the wideness of the foam? The Gift of the Farm (1922) We thank you, old farm, forever For the gift you have freely made To the world and its hard endeavor, Of the boys and the girls who played On your beautiful hills and meadows, Who digged in your kindly soil And who learned in your sun and shadows The lesson of honest toil. We thank you for hands so ready Their manifold tasks to do, For minds that are keen and steady, For hearts that are strong and true, For people of lowly station, For those who have won renown, For the best who have served the nation In the country and the town. The Gifts of the Church (1922) [Transcriber’s note: All verses are italicized.] The dearest friends that life has known In any time or place Were made before the wondrous throne Of mercy and of grace. The bonds of brotherhood were wrought In high communion there Where we have walked with God in thought, And bowed in common prayer. The sweetest mem’ries of the years, The joys most keen and true, The kindest words that blessed our ears The sanctuary knew. The highest peaks our hearts have scaled, The fairest roads we trod, The hours by which all others paled Were in the house of God. God of To-Day (1922) OUR THANKS are thine, O Mighty One, that thou has safely led Our fathers through the grim and trying past And made a way for us in days now dead. Our gratitude before thy throne we cast, That hands divine Have kept our feet and ordered all our ways, God of the yesterdays. We thank thee, too, For that blest hope we treasure fond and deep-- The hope our worn hearts lean so heavy on-- That somewhere in time’s mighty onward sweep The day of God and righteousness shall dawn Serene and true. For all of this we bring our thanks to thee, God of the years to be. But most of all We thank thee for the golden fruitfulness Of fields now rich with grain or bright with flowers, For grace and pardon, joy and blessedness, And every good that even now is ours. And so we call In confidence that thou dost bless our way, God of this present day. The Heart of a Child Is a Scroll (1922) THE HEART of a child is a scroll, A page that is lovely and white; And to it, as fleeting years roll, Come hands with a story to write-- A story of laughter and mirth, A story of sorrow and tears, Of love that encircles the earth, Or sin that embitters the years. Be ever so careful, O hand; Write thou with a sanctified pen. Thy story shall live in the land For years in the doings of men. It shall echo in circles of light, Or lead to the death of a soul. Grave here but a message of right, For the heart of a child is a scroll.