1 All night long on my bedI longed for my lover.I longed for him but he never appeared.
2 “I will arise and look all around throughout the town,and throughout the streets and squares;I will search for my beloved.”I searched for him but I did not find him.
3 The night watchmen found me – the ones who guard the city walls.“Have you seen my beloved?”
4 Scarcely had I passed them bywhen I found my beloved!I held onto him tightly and would not let him gountil I brought him to my mother’s house,to the bedroom chamber of the one who conceived me.
5 I admonish you, O maidens of Jerusalem,by the gazelles and by the young does of the open fields:“Do not awake or arouse love until it pleases!”
6 Who is this coming up from the desertlike a column of smoke,like a fragrant billow of myrrh and frankincense,every kind of fragrant powder of the traveling merchants?