Purple and gold through the morning sky
God sang, walking alone in the garden
The trees accept the pinioned light with a reluctant grace
and the high leaved oaks still mock the ash
with her arms of beseeching lace.
Down in the heather sleepy spiders
spread abroad a misted tracery.
Even at breakfast time
I heard this voice
long before the accustomed hour,
as if no joy of spring had yet expressed
this growth, this urge of sap and mind,
the slow first crawling of a reluctant beetle.
March 1953