I doubt that the first line of this odd little verse, in which the lover compares the girl to a horse harnessed to a chariot, would have been construed as a compliment to a young lady in Solomon’s day any more than it would be today. What, then, is its true significance?

Act Like a Horse!
Creatively speaking, Solomon is comparing the reader to a horse, but not just any old horse out in the meadow, trotting to and fro as the spirit takes it -- but one that is harnessed to one of the chariots of the powerful Pharaoh, ready to perform a specific and important function with strength, fire, and courage and dignity.

If you are doing the job you are gifted to do, and have found a specific purpose to pursue, then you will be able to go fearlessly forward with great strength, and determination, like a horse into battle. A horse is normally quite timid and easily shies away, but not when there is a sniff of battle.

Likewise, by the power of purpose, the right purpose, the weak can be made strong and the timid become determined. Courage is important because it is our emotions, especially fear, that can so easily defeat us when we try to make creative changes in our lives.

You Have a Gift
One lesson here must be that just as a horse is specially equipped to excel in performing horsy functions, which differ from those of sheep, fish, frogs, and birds, so different people are gifted to work best and contribute most effectively to society, in different areas, such as numbers and finance, technology, art, music, literature, teaching, administration, and so on — generalized gifts which have been able to find specific practical expression in every age.

Notice, however, that Solomon once again stresses the importance of putting our gifts to work with the guidance of the creative mind, depicted in this particular scenario by the mighty Pharaoh who drives the chariot.

Do What Your Were Created to Do
The biographies of highly creative individuals suggest that we cannot achieve the excellence of genius in any field we choose, but only in the area that makes proper use of our special capabilities, which is perhaps why Agatha Christie, who tried many things before becoming a great writer, commented: "I learned that I am me, that I can do the things, as one might put it, me can do, but I cannot do the things that me would like to do."

Novelist Stephen King said similarly in an interview that everybody is “drawn”, like the girl in the very first section of the “Song”, towards something, some area of natural interest in which they can excel. Accordingly, Solomon’s main message here may well be that God has given every human being a special gift with which to make their contribution to the creative ecology of society in an excellent and fulfilling manner.

Work to Your Strengths
In "Win With Your Strengths", Donald Clifton and Paula Nelson report that, based on a study of the careers of 250,000 professional people, the international research organization Gallup concluded that high achievement comes when individuals are involved in activities that match their strengths.

Their advice is to pick one of your strengths and pursue it and stick with it — and not to waste time trying to correct weaknesses, unless they are seriously hindering you. Most people who pursue multiple strengths, they claim, end up achieving only mediocrity – jack of all trades, master of none.

Focus Your Thoughts — Like a Burning-glass
In his book "100% Mind Power", Jack Addington points out that once a person has found an area to work in, their thoughts becomes focused on that area, concentrated, like the sun’s rays passing through burning glass, generating creative heat. A composer, for example, thinks only about music. He does not think about physics, or painting, or business. Artists, scientists, designer, and writers, all focus their attention on the particular area in which they seek creative ideas. Once the door is opened, he comments, all kinds of ideas will pour in to help turn your original idea into a reality.

The Passion of Purpose
Here, then, very early on in the "Song", Solomon, writing three thousand years ago, identifies an eternal secret of personal and business success that is still the focus of every modern self-help/inspirational book, from Smile’s Victorian classic, “Self Help”, down to Napoleon Hill’s "Think and Grow Rich" and Anthony Robbin’s "Awaken the Giant Within" -- namely the need to identify a specific goal that you can pursue with a passion and relentless determination.

It Begins with Desire
In "Mindstore", British personal development trainer Jack Black delivers the same message when he says that the initial requirement is a “massive DESIRE” to achieve a goal. Without it, nothing will happen. In fact, if you don’t have such a DESIRE, he add, then you don’t really have a goal either.

The reality is, he laments, that an amazing "96 per cent of our population do not understand the importance of goals”, and so spend their working lives helping the other 4 per cent to achieve their goals – just like the girl in the “Song” who neglected her own vineyard and laboured hard and long instead in someone else's, until she finally woke up to reality.

How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life
The crucial importance of specific short, medium and long-term goals, rated according to their importance, and the identification of the practical steps or tactics required to make them a reality is stressed in Bill Clinton’s presidential autobiography – where he describes how, fueled by a passionate desire to improve the lives of the working class people he grew up with, his life was shaped by a self-help book of the same title as this paragraph, written by Alan Lakein.

When we identify what we want to achieve, priorities are automatically set, time takes on new value as we budget and control it, and creative changes begin to occur.

The One Week Way to Personal Success
The principles of creativity apply in each and every field, not just the arts and the sciences, and probably more importantly for most of us in very mundane matters that make a difference our lives and the lives of those around us.

In his book by the same title as this section, high-powered business executive John O’Keeffe stresses that we can make dramatic improvements in our lives, and change attitudes and habits, in just one week, once we identify specifically what we want to achieve and work out the simple actions required to make it happen – be that losing weight, becoming a better parent, learning to dance, play the guitar, learn to paint, or develop our vocational skills. It begins with desire.

Sometimes, however, for some reason, the decision to make such creative changes is accompanied by unreasoning fears of insecurity and depression, as Solomon discusses later, which is why need the passion of a horse with a sniff of battle in its nostrils.