The Bride tells her Tale

2 I slept, but my heart was awake.

O hark! my beloved is knocking.

"Open to me, my sister,

My dove, my beloved, all spotless.

For wet is my head with the dew,

And my locks with the drops of the night."

3 "I have laid my garment aside,

And why should I don it again?

My feet, too, I have washed,

And why should I soil them again?"

4 My love put his hand through the opening,

And moved was my heart for him.

5 So I rose to let in my darling:

My hands were dripping with myrrh,

With the myrrh that ran over my fingers

And on the catch of the bolt.

6 I opened the door to my love,

But my darling had turned and was gone;

And the soul of me sank, when he vanished.

I sought him, but all in vain:

I called, but he gave me no answer.

7 The watchmen were tramping the city;

They met me, they beat me and wounded me.

Those who kept watch on the walls

Seized the mantle that I had thrown over me.

8 I adjure you, ye maids of Jerusalem,

If so be ye find my beloved,

What, then, shall ye tell my beloved?

That faint with love am I.

9 "What is thy darling more than another,

O thou of women the fairest?

What is thy darling more than another,

That thou dost adjure us so?"