4. Nor does the influence of spring come only to the body As we breathe the soft new air, and see the green cloud gather on the trees, a thousand memories come back ; life is re-lived from the first primrose gathering in childhood to the wonder and joy of last year, when we looked up through the snow of a roof of apple-blossoms to the blue air. Early love, early sorrow, later and wilder passions, the aspirations of youth, the ideals that made the life of lonely wanderings, the thoughts with which we took up work when manhood called us to the front of the battle, the graver thoughts that came when we laid aside hopes too impossible to realize, are all felt, pursued, and longed for, more deeply far in the stirring airs of spring. Every new spring reawakens them all to life within us. With their memories, as with flowers, the meadows of our heart are covered. We walk among them, and as we walk a gentler, tenderer, more receptive temper fills our being. We throw open all the gates of the heart.
^ 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
* Tolstoy, Youth, chap. ii. ( Works, i. 255).
464 SPRING-TIME
when spring came back the Muses came. He caught the youthful- ness 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 a spring sky, began to blossom anew.^
"It's rather dark in the earth to-day,"
Said one little bulb to his brother, "But I thought that I felt a sun-beam ray; We must strive and grow till we find the way ! "
And they nestled close to each other. And they struggled and toiled by day and by night, Till two little snowdrops in green and in white Kose out of the darkness into the light,
And softly kissed each other.
5. The coming of spring is a parable of . the resurrection. Every returning spring-time is a confirmation of our Easter hopes. For it is a parable of that resurrection and restoration of nature which the Bible says is to accompany " the liberty of the glory of the children of God." It is not man alone that will be glorified. Not apart from the struggling, yearning creation round about him will he reach perfection. His lot is bound up in hers for joy as for sorrow. The resurrection will not /ree man from his oneness with nature ; it will express that oneness in a form that will fill uncreated beings with wonder and praise. It is so often implied by religious writers, even if not expressed, that with the last great resurrection the natural world passes away. On the contrary, St. Paul's philosophy of resurrection is in nothing more wonderful than in the place which it gives to nature. In that philosophy he is confirmed, as he in turn confirms its reasoned conclusions, by the investigations of recent science. For he takes his stand on the solidarity between man and nature, and on the common character of their destiny. The same great principles of finality, of travail, of hope which mark man's being mark also the world round about him. " The creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corrup- tion into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we
^ D. Davies, Talks ivilh Men, Women and Cliildren, v. 174.
SONG OF SONGS ii. 11-13 465
know," he adds, " that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." Towards the same great goal man and creation, therefore, alike are hastening. " The times of restoration of all things" prophesied since the world began, "the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory," are to be marked by the final bridals of man and nature. Together redeemed man and restored nature are to shape one glorious future, as they have shared one shadowed and chequered past. As yet neither is perfectly fitted for that future, and hence the life of man in nature is not yet — what one day it will be — truly natural. Nor has nature yet on her side become what one day she will become — the perfect vehicle of spirit. These two futures are slowly but surely converging towards each other across the ages, and one day they will meet in the world's golden eventide, as Isaac met Eebekah and was "comforted" after his sorrow. And then will nature
Set herself to man, Like perfect music unto noble words; And so these twain, upon the skirts of time, Sit side by side, full summed in all their powers Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-Be.
^ Shakespeare has nothing more beautiful than the closing scene in his Winter's Tale. The long-lost, long-mourned wife of Leontes, Hermione, unknown to him, lives all the while, and is given back to him after years of separation, the happy victim of a loving plot prepared for his own after-pleasure. Ushered into the chapel of the house of Paulina, her true friend, he beholds what he imagines to be her lovely statue, till slowly it glides to- wards him ; then offers him her hand, and hangs upon him in loving embrace. The statue lias become his long-lost wife, risen as it were from her grave, and moving with tenderness of grace across the long interval of years, to fling herself once more upon his arms. But Leontes himself is chastened by the long bitter years which prepare him for this moment, and when the vision of his former joy comes, he is ready to welcome it. When man him- self has been disciplined by the long ages of waiting, then shall the end which brings fruition and realization to every pure earthly