SUMMARY
The young man beckons the young woman to come away with him to enjoy the pleasure of their love in the newborn springtime.
ANALYSIS
The poem uses this phrase “arise, my love, my fair one” twice in this chapter. The longing to hear and cherish the sound of the lover’s voice is a vivid part of the overall portrayal of yearning and desire. The call to “come away” may play on the same theme as the observation in Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife”; the new relationship created by love calls the couple into new life, a new beginning. The full mutuality of the relationship is made clear by the balancing call of the woman in Song of Solomon 7:11 (“Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields”). Both the man and woman are called away, each by the other, into a new place.
The new season of spring into which the lovers are called is described in language that has become familiar in Christian wedding services and other poetry based on these biblical texts: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.”
