Chapter 6

Where should he be, my true love, but among the spices; where but in his garden, gathering the lilies?

All mine, my true love, and I all his; ever he would choose the lilies for his pasture-ground.

Fair thou art and graceful, my heart’s love; for beauty, Jerusalem itself is not thy match; yet no embattled array so awes men’s hearts.

Turn thy eyes away, that so unman me! Hair dazzling as the goats have, when they come flocking home from the Galaad hills;

teeth white as ewes fresh from the washing, well matched as the twin lambs that follow them; barren is none;

thy cheeks shew through their veil rosy as skin of pomegranate!

What are three score of queens, and eighty concubines, and maids about them past all counting?

One there is beyond compare; for me, none so gentle, none so pure! Only once her mother travailed; she would have no darling but this. Maid was none that saw her but called her blessed; queen was none, nor concubine, but spoke in her praise.

Who is this, whose coming shews like the dawn of day? No moon so fair, no sun so majestic, no embattled array so awes men’s hearts.

But when I betook me to the fruit garden, to find apples in the hollows, to see if vine had flowered there, and pomegranate had budded,

all unawares, my heart misgave me … beside the chariots of Aminadab.

Come back, maid of Sulam, come back; let us feast our eyes on thee. Maid of Sulam, come back, come back!