The trees their swelling buds disclose

Verse 1
The trees their swelling buds disclose,
The vernal flowers appear,
And nature’s resurrection shows
Our constant summer near:
The melancholy season’s past,
No more we droop and mourn,
But weathering out the wintry blast
Salute the spring’s return.

Verse 2
The signs of our Redeemer nigh
We see and understand,
With chearful hope look up, and cry
His kingdom is at hand:
The joys which from believing flow
Are happiness in bloom,
And soon by tender love we know,
The life of heaven shall come.

Verse 3
In that perpetual summer we
Retain the flowers of grace,
Nor fear the winter’s wastes to see,
Or autumn’s sad decays:
Summer and spring eternal meet,
And mix their fruits and flowers,
And Jesus makes our bliss compleat,
And all He is, is ours.

Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Behold the fig-tree and all the trees; When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of yourselves, that summer is now at hand &c.’—[Luke 21,] v. 29–31.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Luke.” This manuscript is part of the collection of the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester (accession number MA 1977/575, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 279.
Publishing: Public Domain