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The Bride’s Beauty Extolled

4How beautiful you are, my love,
   how very beautiful!
Your eyes are doves
   behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats,
   moving down the slopes of Gilead.
² Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes
   that have come up from the washing,
all of which bear twins,
   and not one among them is bereaved.
³ Your lips are like a crimson thread,
   and your mouth is lovely.
Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate
   behind your veil.
⁴ Your neck is like the tower of David,
   built in courses;
on it hang a thousand bucklers,
   all of them shields of warriors.
⁵ Your two breasts are like two fawns,
   twins of a gazelle,
   that feed among the lilies.
⁶ Until the day breathes
   and the shadows flee,
I will hasten to the mountain of myrrh
   and the hill of frankincense.
⁷ You are altogether beautiful, my love;
   there is no flaw in you.
⁸ Come with me from Lebanon, my bride;
   come with me from Lebanon.
Depart^* from the peak of Amana,
   from the peak of Senir and Hermon,
from the dens of lions,
   from the mountains of leopards.

⁹ You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride,
   you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes,
   with one jewel of your necklace.
¹⁰ How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride!
   how much better is your love than wine,
   and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!
¹¹ Your lips distil nectar, my bride;
   honey and milk are under your tongue;
   the scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon.
¹² A garden locked is my sister, my bride,
   a garden locked, a fountain sealed.
¹³ Your channel^* is an orchard of pomegranates
   with all choicest fruits,
   henna with nard,
¹⁴ nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,
   with all trees of frankincense,
myrrh and aloes,
   with all chief spices—
¹⁵ a garden fountain, a well of living water,
   and flowing streams from Lebanon.

¹⁶ Awake, O north wind,
   and come, O south wind!
Blow upon my garden
   that its fragrance may be wafted abroad.
Let my beloved come to his garden,
   and eat its choicest fruits.