1I have come to my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my balsam, I have eaten my forest with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, friends; drink, and become drunk, with love.
2I am asleep, but my heart is awake. The sound of my beloved, knocking: Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my blameless one, for my head is full of dew, my locks of the drops of the night.
3I have stripped off my tunic; how could I put it on again? I have washed my feet; how could I soil them?
4My beloved stretched out his hand from the hole, and my inward parts were in commotion over him.
5I rose, I myself, to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped myrrh, and my fingers with myrrh passing over the palms of the bolt.
6I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned away, had passed on. My being went out when he spoke; I sought him and did not find him, I called him and he did not answer me.
7The watchers who go around in the city found me; they struck me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls lifted my veil from off me.
8I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem: if you find my beloved, what will you tell him? That I am sick with love.
9What is your beloved more than another beloved, most beautiful among women? What is your beloved more than another beloved, that you have adjured us so?
10My beloved is dazzling and red, bearing the banner above ten thousand.
11His head is pure gold, fine gold; his locks are curls, black as the raven.
12His eyes are like doves beside channels of water, bathing in milk, sitting in a setting.
13His cheeks are like a bed of balsam, towers of perfumes; his lips are lilies, dripping myrrh that passes along.
14His hands are rods of gold, filled with chrysolite; his inward parts are a plate of ivory, covered with sapphires.
15His legs are pillars of fine linen, founded on bases of pure gold; his appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars.
16His palate is sweetness, and all of him is desirable. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, daughters of Jerusalem.