Page:JPS-1917-Universal.djvu/989

---

³As an apple-tree among the trees of the wood,

So is my beloved among the sons.

Under its shadow I delighted to sit,

And its fruit was sweet to my taste.

⁴He hath brought me to the banqueting-house,

And his banner over me is love.

⁵'Stay ye me with dainties, refresh me with apples;

For I am love-sick.'

⁶Let his left hand be under my head,

And his right hand embrace me.

⁷'I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

By the gazelles, and by the hinds of the field,

That ye awaken not, nor stir up love, until it please.'

⁸Hark! my beloved! behold, he cometh,

Leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.

⁹My beloved is like a gazelle or a young hart;

Behold, he standeth behind our wall,

He looketh in through the windows,

He peereth through the lattice.

¹⁰My beloved spoke, and said unto me:

'Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

¹¹For, lo, the winter is past,

The rain is over and gone;

¹²The flowers appear on the earth;

The time of singing is come,

And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

¹³The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs,

And the vines in blossom give forth their fragrance.

Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

¹⁴O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff,

Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice;

For sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.'

¹⁵'Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vineyards;

For our vineyards are in blossom.'

¹⁶My beloved is mine, and I am his,

That feedeth among the lilies.

¹⁷Until the day breathe, and the shadows flee away,

Turn, my beloved, and be thou like a gazelle or a young hart

Upon the mountains of spices.

 

3 By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth;

I sought him, but I found him not.

²'I will rise now, and go about the city,

In the streets and in the broad ways,

I will seek him whom my soul loveth.'

I sought him, but I found him not.

³The watchmen that go about the city found me:

'Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?'

⁴Scarce had I passed from them,

When I found him whom my soul loveth:

I held him, and would not let him go,

Until I had brought him into my mother's house,

And into the chamber of her that conceived me.

⁵'I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

By the gazelles, and by the hinds of the field,

That ye awaken not, nor stir up love,

Until it please.'

 

⁶Who is this that cometh up out of the wilderness

967