How fair thou art, my true love, how fair!✻ Eyes soft as dove’s eyes, half-seen behind thy veil; hair that clusters thick as the flocks of goats, when they come home from the Galaad hills;

teeth white as ewes fresh from the washing, well matched as the twin lambs that follow them; barren is none.

Thy lips a line of scarlet, guardians of that sweet utterance; thy cheeks shew through their veil rosy as a halved pomegranate.

Thy neck rising proudly, nobly adorned, like David’s embattled tower, hung about with a thousand shields, panoply of the brave;

graceful thy breasts as two fawns that feed among the lilies.

Till the day grows cool, and the shadows long, myrrh-scented mountain and incense-breathing hill shall be my home.

Fair in every part, my true love, no fault in all thy fashioning!

Venture forth from Lebanon, and come to me, my bride, my queen that shall be! Leave Amana behind thee, Sanir and Hermon heights, where the lairs of lions are, where the leopards roam the hills.✻

What a wound thou hast made, my bride, my true love, what a wound thou hast made in this heart of mine! And all with one glance of an eye, all with one ringlet straying on thy neck!

Sweet, sweet are thy caresses, my bride, my true love; wine cannot ravish the senses like that embrace, nor any spices match the perfume that breathes from thee.

Sweet are thy lips, my bride, as honey dripping from its comb; honey-sweet thy tongue, and soft as milk; the perfume of thy garments is very incense.

My bride, my true love, a close garden; hedged all about, a spring shut in and sealed! What wealth of grace is here!

Well-ordered rows of pomegranates, tree of cypress and tuft of nard;

no lack there whether of spikenard or saffron, of calamus, cinnamon, or incense-tree,✻ of myrrh, aloes or any rarest perfume.

A stream bordered with garden; water so fresh never came tumbling down from Lebanon.

North wind, awake; wind of the south, awake and come; blow through this garden of mine, and set its fragrance all astir.