The Joy of Spring
D. Davies. Songs 2:10-13 My beloved spoke, and said to me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.… Spring is the season of resurrection, the period of renewed hope and quickened sensibilities, when the gloom of winter is forgotten in the anticipation of growing brightness and life The spring is a season that awakens hope, that revives deadened sensibilities, that gives a man a new sense of life, and makes him feel young again. Milton tells us that the muses always came back to him in spring. He could not sing very much as a rule, in winter, but when spring came back the muses came. He caught the youthfulness and hopefulness of spring: he looked round, and saw life springing triumphantly out of the grave of winter: he saw the feeblest growths rejoice in a new life and beauty. Then, too, his own intellect, under the blessing and inspiration of his God, just as the flower under the blessing and inspiration of a spring sky, began to blossom anew. Spring, therefore, is a season that comes to all sensitive men with special freshness and inspiration. It is something to feel that after all death is not the mightiest thing even in this physical world. When the spring comes, life in its tenderest, loveliest, and most delicate forms springs out of the cold and lately frozen earth. Look at the little bud as it opens. What so delicate as the flower? Take it up and carry it in your hand; you have to guard against withering it by the warmth of your hand. And yet there it is — it has sprung up, almost before you knew it, out of the cold and bare earth. The sun came in the brightness of his rising, and, under the genial effects of his warmth that little flower sprang up out of the clammy soil. Is not that a message for us? Can a life so exquisitely tender and so beautiful spring out of the desolate earth? Then I have learnt once more that all along the line, even in the physical world, life is triumphant. That even in the revolving year death only reigns for a brief season, and even then to answer the higher purposes of life in its rich and varied developments and outgrowths; so that when the proper season comes, life asserts itself anew, in new forms of beauty, that surprise the eye, and delight, the heart. 1. The spring delights the eye — "The flowers appear on the earth." What are the uses of flowers? Surely one is the joy they give to life. It is as if God said to Nature, "I am about to give thee reviving power: see to it that the first things thou bringest forth shall be things of beauty, a joy to the child's eye, a solace to the heart of the invalid in the sick room, and a delight to the bedimmed vision of the aged ere the realities of another world dawn upon them. See to it that thou puttest on thy loveliest garb — not the useful for the moment so much as the delightful, which, however, shall be the promise of the useful by and by." Nature responds and sends forth its lovely flowers — "flowers appear on the earth." But God has also higher motives than that. It is His will that the flowers should take their humble and doubtless secondary part, but a very important one, in our and in our children's education. He has not merely intended that we should be hard at work from morning to night, and see the buildings which our hands and other hands have erected, without seeing a field or becoming rapturous over an opening flower. No, He bids us go forth to the fields, as opportunity offers, and see how happy God would have His children be, "for the flowers appear in the earth." 2. But not only is the eye appealed to by the beauty of Nature, but also the ear by its music — "The time of the singing of birds is come." Out of the fulness of the heart the bird pours out its harmonies. This is the safety valve, or the bird would die of compression. It sends out the music because it cannot keep it in. This is the instinct that God has put in the heart of the bird, bidding him "tell out the joy that is in him." This is a blessed privilege. And as it is true of the bird, it ought to be true of the Christian. The Christian must sing out his joy like the bird, not for the sake of effect, but for the joy and relief that the very act gives. Wendell Holmes tells us that there are some men and women who "die with all their music in them." This is spoken of as one of the saddest possibilities of life. There are circumstances in life. which have so oppressed them that they grow sullen, hopeless, and despairing. There is nothing more sad than such a sight. The Christian surely should be beyond that. O man, touch the strings of thy lyre, and out of those finger tips shall go forth harmonies into every string thou touchest. Do not sit down in the dust; lift up thy voice withal, to and for God. Speak for Christ, and sing of His love; and out of thy soul, even in trial and in affliction, shall inspiring harmonies go forth. 3. Not only does the spring gratify the eye and the ear, but also the smell. This is the third gate of which Bunyan speaks. Here we have a perfect picture of a peaceful home in the East. We have already read of the eye being gratified, and the ear charmed, and now we read of the tender grape giving a sweet smell. And so God speaks to us through the avenues of even our physical senses. It is His wish that we should all be happy on this bright spring day, and that, like the flowers and the birds, and sweet smelling blossoms, we should be full of praise to His name. (D. Davies.) Parallel Verses KJV: My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. WEB: My beloved spoke, and said to me, "Rise up, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.