CANTICLE II.

CHAP. II. 8-III. 5.

THE SLEEPING BRIDE AWAKENED, SEEKS THE KING, AND BRINGS HIM HOME.

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PART I.—CHAP. II. 8-15.

Call by the King to the Garden in Spring.

Called hath my Beloved,

And bespoken me;

"Arise, my Love, my fair one,

And come thy way,

For lo the winter hath passed,

The rain is over, is gone;

The flowers are appearing over the sward,

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The season of

song is come for the bird,

And the call of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig-tree sweeteneth her early figs,

And the vines with the setting grape shed odours;
Arise, my Love, my fair one,

And come thy way.

O my Dove, in the clefts of the rock,
Within the hiding of the crag,

Let me see thy countenance,
Let me hear thy voice;
For thy voice is sweet,
And thy countenance comely.

Take ye for us the foxes,

The little foxes,

That spoil the vineyards,

Our vineyards with the tender grapes."

PART II.—CHAP. II. 16–III. 5.
Response to the Call.

THE BRIDE.

My Beloved is mine, and I am his;
He that feeds among the lilies.

Until the day breathe,

And the shadows flee away,

Turn thou again!

Make thee, my Beloved,

Like unto the roe,

Or unto a fawn of the harts,

On the Mountains of parting Clefts.

III. Upon my bed in the midnight,

I sought for him whom my soul loveth;
I sought him, but I found him not.
2 Let me arise now, and go about the city;
In the streets, and in the open places,
Will I seek for him whom my soul loveth;
I sought him, but I found him not.

3 There found me the watchmen that walk round the city, "Seen have ye Him whom my soul loveth?"

4 Scarcely had I passed them by,

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Ere I found him whom my soul loveth.

I held him, and would not let him go,

Till I brought him in to the house of my mother,
And to the chamber of her that bare me.

I lay on you a charge,

O daughters of Jerusalem;
As among the roes,

Or amid the hinds of the field,

If ye shall arouse,

Or if ye awaken

LOVE until consenting.

CANTICLE III.

CHAP. III. 6–v. I.

THE BRIDEGROOM WITH THE BRIDE.

PART I. -CHAP. III. 6-II.

The King in his Bridal Chariot.

DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM.

6 What is this coming up from the Wilderness,
As if it were pillars of smoke,
Odorous of myrrh and frankincense,
With all fragrant dust of the merchant?

FRIENDS OF THE BRIDEGROOM.

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Behold his Chariot!

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It is Solomon's;

Sixty valiant men around it,

Of the valiant of Israel;

All of them graspers of the sword,

Trained unto battle;

Every man his sword on his side

Against alarm by night.

9 The chariot King Solomon made him, Of the trees of Lebanon ;

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Its pillars he made of silver,

The seat thereof gold,

Its covering purple,

The midst thereof inlaid with LOVE
For the daughters of Jerusalem.

Go forth and look, ye daughters of Zion,
On King Solomon !

In the diadem

Wherewithal his mother crowned him,
Upon the day of his espousals,

And the day of the gladness of his heart.

PART II.-CHAP. IV. I-7.

Beauty of the Bride; her Portrait by the King.

Thine Eyes are doves within thy locks;
Thy Hair like a flock of the goats,

That hang adown Mount Gilead.

2 Thy Teeth like a flock of sheep even shorn, That went up from the washing,