What can the woman of Sulam give you to feast your eyes on, if it be not the dance of the Two Camps?✻

Ah, princely maid, how dainty are the steps of thy sandalled feet! Thighs well shaped as the beads of a necklace, some master-craftsman’s work;

navel delicately carved as a goblet, that has ever its meed of liquor, belly rounded like a heap of corn amid the lilies.

Graceful thy breasts are as two fawns of the gazelle.

Thy neck rising proudly like a tower, but all of ivory; deep, deep thy eyes, like those pools at Hesebon, under Beth-rabbim Gate; thy nose imperious as the keep that frowns on Damascus from the hill-side.

Thy head erect as Carmel, bright as royal purple the braided ripples of thy hair.

How graceful thou art, dear maiden, how fair, how dainty!

Thy stature challenges the palm tree, thy breasts the clustering vine.

What thought should I have but to reach the tree’s top, and gather its fruit? Breasts generous as the grape, breath sweet as apples,

mouth soft to my love’s caress✻ as good wine is soft to the palate, as food to lips and teeth.

My true love, I am all his; and who but I the longing of his heart?✻

Come with me, my true love; for us the country ways, the cottage roof for shelter.

Dawn shall find us in the vineyard, looking to see what flowers the vine has, and whether they are growing into fruit; whether the pomegranates are in blossom. And there thou shalt be master of my love.

The mandrakes, what scent they give! Over the door at home there are fruits of every sort a-drying; I put them by, new and old, for my true love to eat.