1Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you?
2My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spice, to graze in the gardens and to gather lilies.
3I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine — he who grazes among the lilies.
4You are beautiful, my darling, like Tirzah, lovely like Jerusalem, awe-inspiring as armies with banners.
5Turn your eyes away from me, for they overwhelm me. Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down from Gilead.
6Your teeth are like a flock of ewes that have come up from the washing, all of them bearing twins, and not one among them bereaved.
7Like a slice of pomegranate are your temples behind your veil.
8Sixty are the queens and eighty concubines, and maidens beyond number,
9but my dove, my perfect one, is unique — she is the only one of her mother, the pure one of her who bore her. The daughters saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines praised her.
10Who is this that looks forth like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, pure as the sun, awe-inspiring as armies with banners?
11I went down to the nut orchard to look at the blossoms of the valley, to see whether the vine had budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom.
12I did not know myself — my desire set me among the chariots of my noble people.
13Return, return, O Shulammite! Return, return, that we may gaze upon you! Why do you all gaze upon the Shulammite, as upon the dance of Mahanaim?
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