Come Ye Thankful People, Come

Henry Alford
Come, ye thankful people, come,
raise the song of harvest home;
all is safely gathered in,
ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide
for our wants to be supplied;
come to God's own temple, come,
raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God's own field,
fruit as praise to God we yield;
wheat and tares together sown
are to joy or sorrow grown;
first the blade and then the ear,
then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we
wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come,
and shall take the harvest home;
from the field shall in that day
all offenses purge away,
giving angels charge at last
in the fire the tares to cast;
but the fruitful ears to store
in the garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come,
bring thy final harvest home;
gather thou thy people in,
free from sorrow, free from sin,
there, forever purified,
in thy presence to abide;
come, with all thine angels, come,
raise the glorious harvest home.

“Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” was written in rural England in the mid-nineteenth century, when the life of the village during the winter depended on the bounty of the autumn harvest. It combines the image of an autumn harvest with two of Jesus' parables, Mark 4:26-29 and Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.

It is commonly sung as a song of rejoicing over a bountiful harvest, which it appears to be from the first stanza. However, it is really a more sobering text and may have been intended to provoke Christians to consider whether they are truly people of God (represented by the wheat in Jesus' parable of Matthew 13), or merely lookalikes (represented by the weeds).

The second stanza closes with a brief prayer that God would enable those who sing to be true Christian disciples, while the fourth stanza is a prayer that the Lord would soon return for the final harvest.

May you have a blessed and safe Thanksgiving,
Dorene

Source: hymnary.org/text/come_ye_thankful_people_come