The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle[dove] is heard in our land.
—Song of Solomon 2:12 (KJV)
LOOK: Mann mit Vögeln by Max Hunziker
LISTEN: “The Song of the Birds” | Words by Arthur Cleveland Coxe, 1862 | Music by Wilder Adkins, 2023 | Performed by Wilder Adkins with Eliza King on Cardiphonia’s Resurrect, vol. 1, 2023
The winter is over and gone at last;
The days of snow and cold are past.
Over the fields the flowers appear;
It is the Spirit’s voice we hear, voice we hear.Refrain 1:
The singing of birds, a warbling band,
And the Spirit’s voice,
The voice of all truth,
And the fountain of youth
Is heard in our land, is heard in our land.The tomb, it was sealed, a rock at its door;
But winter is gone and comes no more.
The seal is broken and now are seen
Valleys and woods and gardens green, and gardens green.Refrain 2:
The singing of birds, a warbling band,
And flowеrs are words
Which even a child,
So free and so wild,
May undеrstand, surely understand.And Christ is the song of everything,
For death is winter, and Christ is spring.
Fountains that warble in purling words,
Hark, how they echo the song of birds, the song of birds.Refrain 3:
The singing of birds, a warbling band,
And the purling words
Of sea and of surf
And mountain streams pure,
Are heard in our land, are heard in our land.
This hymn text originally appeared in A New Service and Tune Book for Sunday School by Alfred Bailey Goodrich (Utica, New York, 1862), and its author, Rev. Dr. A. Cleveland Coxe, the second Episcopal bishop of Western New York, later compiled it in his collection of original poems The Paschal: Poems for Passion-tide and Easter (New York, 1889). Wilder Adkins has lightly adapted it and set it to music—a light, gentle, lilting melody.
Many hymns connect springtime, with its flowering abundance and sunshiny warmth, to Christ’s resurrection. But Coxe bowled me over with these two lines that articulate the metaphor so freshly: “And Christ is the song of everything, / For death is winter, and Christ is spring.” Wow!
Art & Theology 