The Bride and Her Beloved

1I Came to my garden, my sister, O spouse: I gathered my myrrh with my spices; I ate my droppings with my honey; I drank my wine with my milk: Eat, O friends; drink ye, and drink to the full, O beloved ones.

2I slept and my heart waked: the voice of my beloved knocks at the door; Open to me, my sister, my friend, my dove, my perfect one: my head was filled with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.

3I put off my tunic, and how shall I put it on? I washed my feet; how shall I defile them?

4My beloved sent his hand from the hole, and my bowels were disquieted for him.

5I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dropped myrrh, and my fingers, myrrh overflowing upon the hands of the bolt.

6I opened to my beloved, and my beloved turned about, he passed away: my soul went forth in his speaking: I sought and I found him not; I called him and he answered me not.

7They watching going round about in the city, found me; they struck me, they wounded me: they watching the wall took away my veil from me.

8I adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye shall find my beloved, what ye shall announce to him: I am pierced by love.

9What is thy beloved above the beloved, O beautiful one among women? What thy beloved above the beloved, that thou didst thus adjure us?

10My beloved is white and ruddy, bearing the standard of ten thousand.

11His head purified gold, his locks waving branches, black as a raven.

12His eyes as doves upon channels of waters washed with milk, sitting upon fulness.

13His cheeks as beds of spices, towers of aromatic herbs: his lips lilies, dropping overflowing myrrh.

14His hands rings of gold completed in Tarshish: his bowels wrought ivory covered over with sapphires.

15His legs bases of white marble, founded upon of pure gold: his aspect as Lebanon, choice as the cedars.

16His palate, sweetness: he is all loveliness. This my beloved, and this my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.