T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
His True Love’s Praise
Song of Solomon VII(Arranged by Sir James George Frazer, 1895) HOW beautiful are thy feet with shoes, | |
| O prince’s daughter! | |
| The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, | |
| The work of the hands of a cunning workman. | |
| Thy navel is like a round goblet, | 5 |
| Which wanteth not liquor: | |
| Thy belly is like an heap of wheat | |
| Set about with lilies. | |
| Thy two breasts are like two young roes | |
| That are twins. | 10 |
| Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; | |
| Thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim: | |
| Thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon | |
| Which looketh toward Damascus. | |
| Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, | 15 |
| And the hair of thine head like purple; | |
| The king is held in the galleries. | |
| How fair and how pleasant art thou, | |
| O love, for delights! | |
| This thy stature is like to a palm tree, | 20 |
| And thy breasts to clusters of grapes. | |
| I said, I will go up to the palm tree, | |
| I will take hold of the boughs thereof: | |
| Now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, | |
| And the smell of thy nose like apples; | 25 |
| And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, | |
| That goeth down sweetly, | |
| Causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak. | |
| I am my beloved’s, | |
| And his desire is toward me. | 30 |
| Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; | |
| Let us lodge in the villages. | |
| Let us get up early to the vineyards; | |
| Let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, | |
| And the pomegranates bud forth: | 35 |
| There will I give thee my loves. | |
| The mandrakes give a smell, | |
| And at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, | |
| Which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved. | |