Song

¹ How beautiful you are, my darling—

how very beautiful!

Your eyes are like doves

behind your veil.

Your hair is like a flock of goats

streaming down Mount Gilead.

² Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn sheep

coming up from the washing;

each has its twin,

and not one of them is lost.

³ Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon,

and your mouth is lovely.

Your brow behind your veil

is like a slice of pomegranate.

⁴ Your neck is like the tower of David,

built with rows of stones;

on it hang a thousand shields,

all of them shields of warriors.

⁵ Your breasts are like two fawns,

twins of a gazelle grazing among the lilies.

⁶ Before the day breaks and the shadows flee,

I will make my way

to the mountain of myrrh

and to the hill of frankincense.

⁷ You are altogether beautiful, my darling;

in you there is no flaw.

⁸ Come with me from Lebanon, my bride,

come with me from Lebanon!

Descend ^[a] from the peak of Amana,

from the summits of Senir and Hermon,

from the dens of the lions,

from the mountains of the leopards.

⁹ You have captured my heart,

my sister, my bride;

you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes,

with one jewel of your neck.

¹⁰ How delightful is your love,

my sister, my bride!

Your love is much better than wine,

and the fragrance of your perfume than all spices.

¹¹ Your lips, my bride,

drip sweetness like the honeycomb;

honey and milk are under your tongue,

and the fragrance of your garments

is like the aroma of Lebanon.

¹² My sister, my bride, you are a garden locked up,

a spring enclosed, a fountain sealed.

¹³ Your branches are an orchard of pomegranates

with the choicest of fruits, with henna and nard,

¹⁴ with nard and saffron, with calamus and cinnamon,

with every kind of frankincense tree,

with myrrh and aloes,

with all the finest spices.

¹⁵ You are a garden spring,

a well of fresh water ^[b]

flowing down from Lebanon.

¹⁶ Awake, O north wind,

and come, O south wind.

Breathe on my garden

and spread the fragrance of its spices.

Let my beloved come into his garden

and taste its choicest fruits.