1I am come into my garden, my sister, [my] bride; I have plucked my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my sugar-cane with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, ye companions; drink, yea, drink abundantly, ye friends.—

2I slept, but my heart was awake: [there was] the voice of my beloved that knocked, “Open for me, my sister, my beloved, my dove, my guiltless one; for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.”

3I have put off my coat: how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet: how shall I defile them?

4My friend stretched forth his hand through the opening, and my inmost parts were moved for him.

5I rose up myself to open for my friend; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with fluid myrrh, upon the handles of the lock.

6I indeed opened for my beloved; but my beloved had vanished, and was gone: my soul had failed me while he was speaking; I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he answered me not.

7Then found me the watchmen that walked about the city; they smote me, they wounded me: they took away my vail from me, they that watched the walls.

8I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, what will ye tell him? that I am sick of love.—

9What is thy friend more than another's friend, O thou fairest of women? what is thy friend more than another's friend, that thus thou adjurest us?—

10My friend is white and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand.

11His head is bright as the finest gold, his locks are like waving foliage, and black as a raven.

12His eyes are like [those of] doves by streamlets of waters, bathed in milk, well fitted in their setting.

13His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as turrets of sweet perfumes: his lips, like lilies, dropping with fluid myrrh.

14His hands are like wheels of gold beset with the chrysolite: his body, an image made of ivory overlaid with sapphires.

15His legs are like pillars of marble, resting upon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent like the cedars.

16His palate is full of sweets, and every thing in him is agreeable. This is my friend, and this is my beloved, O daughters of Jerusalem.—