Husbandry spiritualized, or, The heavenly use of earthly things consisting of many pleasant observations,…

Beholding in an early Spring, fruit Trees embossed with beautiful blossoms of various colours, which breathed ⟨p. 252⟩forth the delicious odours into the circumambi• […] and adorned the branches on which they grew, like so many rich jewels, or glittering pendents; and further observing, how these perfumed blossoms dropped off, being bitten with the frost and discoloured all the ground, as if a shower of snow had fallen; I said, within my self, these sweet and early Lord, in the days of my first acquaintance with him. Oh! what fervent love? panting desires, and heavenly delights beautified my soul in those days! the odoriferous scent of the sweetest blossoms, the morning breath of the most fragrant flowers, hath not half that sweetness with which those my first affection were enriched. O! happy time, thrice pleasant Spring! my soul hath it still in remembrance, and is humbled within me; for these also were but blossoms which now are nipped and faded, that first flourish is gone; my heart is like the Winters earth, because thy face, Lord, is to me like a Winter Sun. Awake, O Northwind! and come, South wind, blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out, then let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruit!