5 

“My own, my bride, I come e* into my garden

to gather me balsam and myrrh,

to eat my honey in the comb

to drink my wine and milk.”

(Eat away, dear ones, drink your fill of love!)

2 

I slept, but my heart lay waking;

O dreamed--ah! there is my darling knocking!

“Open to me, my own,” he calls

“my dear, my dove, my paragon!

My head is drenched with dew

my hair with drops of the night.”

3 

“But I have doffed my robe

why should I don it?

My feet are bathed;

why should I soil them?”

4 

Then my darling put his hand in

his right hand at the door

and my heart yearned for him

how my soul fainted when I heard him!

5 

So I rose to let my darling in,

my hands all moist with myrrh,

my fingers' wet with liquid myrrh,

that dripped on the catch of the bolt.

6 

I opened to my darling,

but, my darling, he had gone

I sought him, but I could not find him,

I called, he never answered.

7 

The watchmen met me on their rounds,

struck me and wounded me

they robbed me of my mantle

these warders of the walls.

8 

O maidens of Jerusalem, I charge you

if you find my darling

tell my darling this

that I am lovesick.

9 

“And what is your darling more than another,

O fairest of women?

What is your darling above all others,

that you charge us thus?”

10 

Fresh and ruddy is my darling,

the pick of ten thousand;

11 

his head is a crown of gold,

his curls black as the raven,

12 

his eyes like doves upon the water,

bathed in milk, limpid and swimming,

13 

his cheeks are beds of balsam-flower,

banks of sweet perfume

his lips are lilies red

breathing liquid myrrh,

14 

his fingers are golden tapers

tipped with topaz pink,

his body is wrought of ivory

blue-veined with sapphire,

15 

his limbs are marble columns

resting on sockets of gold

he towers to the eye like Lebanon,

as lordly as a cedar,

16 

his kisses are utterly sweet--

he is all a delight!

And that is my darling, my dear,

O maidens of Jerusalem!