Poems (Linn)/Early Morning in a Vineyard

by Edith Willis Linn

EARLY MORNING IN A VINEYARD.

THE clustered, purple, luscious fruit
 Shall not a tribute song awake;
Come chant the praise of verdant vine
Where dainty tendrils curl and twine,
 A song for very greenness' sake.

Ere on the vineyard's trellised rows
 The early morning dews have dried,
The merry birds begin to sing;
The butterfly puts forth his wing;
 The bee the wild-rose bloom has tried.

The tiny weeds their dainty heads
 Toward the spotless blue uplift,
And myriad swarming, flitting things
Spread in the sun their gauzy wings,
 Or on the soft breeze float and drift.

Though peace is there like that we feel
 In dim, cool, holy aisles of prayer,
No thing is still. The vine's soft sway
Makes moving shadows on the way;
 Motion and action everywhere.

Let those whose souls are knit with pain
 In this fresh morning beauty stand;
Better than scroll and book and creed
The lesson of the lowliest weed,
 The sense that God is close at hand.

Whatever joy of clustered fruit
 The autumn's richest gift may be,
The vineyard on a summer morn
Holds grace that puts it all to scorn,—
 The summer's very soul set free.