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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  The Fairest Love

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

The Fairest Love

Song of Solomon VI. 1–7, 9–13
 
(Arranged by Sir James George Frazer, 1895)

WHITHER is thy beloved gone,
O thou fairest among women?
Whither is thy beloved turned aside?
That we may seek him with thee.
My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices,        5
To feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.
I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine:
He feedeth among the lilies.
Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah,
Comely as Jerusalem,        10
Terrible as an army with banners.
Turn away thine eyes from me,
For they have overcome me;
Thy hair is as a flock of goats
That appear from Gilead.        15
Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep
Which go up from the washing,
Whereof every one beareth twins,
And there is not one barren among them.
As a piece of a pomegranate are thy temples        20
Within thy locks.
My love, my undefiled is but one;
She is the only one of her mother,
She is the choice one of her that bare her.
The daughters saw her, and blessed her;        25
Yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.
Who is she that looketh forth as the morning,
Fair as the moon,
Clear as the sun,
And terrible as an army with banners?        30
I went down into the garden of nuts,
To see the fruits of the valley,
And to see whether the vine flourished,
And the pomegranates budded.
Or ever I was aware, my soul made me        35
Like the chariots of Ammi-nadib.
Return, return, O Shulamite;
Return, return, that we may look upon thee.
What will ye see in the Shulamite?
As it were the company of two armies.        40