Bernard of Clairvaux, on Song 5:2

“I sleep, and my heart watcheth; the voice of my beloved knocking: Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is full of dew, and my locks of the drops of the nights.”

“There is a place with the bridegroom from which he decrees his judgments and arranges his counsels, he who is the governor of the universe, establishing laws for every creature, weight and measure and number. And this place is high and secret, but by no means quiet. For even though he, as far as he is concerned, disposes all things sweetly, he nevertheless disposes; and he does not permit the one contemplating, who may perhaps have reached that place, to be at rest; but wondrously, though delightfully, he wearies the one who searches and marvels, and renders him restless. Beautifully the bride expresses both these things in what follows, namely the delight of this kind of contemplation and the restlessness, where she confesses both that she sleeps and that her heart watches (Song 5:2). For in the sleep of most sweet amazement and placid wonder she signifies that she feels rest; but in the wakefulness of no less restless curiosity and laborious exercise she signifies that she suffers weariness. Hence blessed Job: "If I sleep," he says, "I say, When shall I rise? and again I await the evening" (Job 7:4). Do you perceive in these words a holy soul wishing at times to decline, in a certain way, a burdensome sweetness, and again to desire the same sweet burden? For he would not have said, "When shall I rise?" if the repose of his contemplation had altogether pleased him: but also if it had altogether displeased him, he would not again have awaited the hour of rest, that is, the evening.”

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