The Man

4-7 Dear, dear friend and lover,
    you’re as beautiful as Tirzah, city of delights,
Lovely as Jerusalem, city of dreams,
    the ravishing visions of my ecstasy.
Your beauty is too much for me—I’m in over my head.
    I’m not used to this! I can’t take it in.
Your hair flows and shimmers
    like a flock of goats in the distance
    streaming down a hillside in the sunshine.
Your smile is generous and full—
    expressive and strong and clean.
Your veiled cheeks
    are soft and radiant.

8-9 There’s no one like her on earth,
    never has been, never will be.
She’s a woman beyond compare.
    My dove is perfection,
Pure and innocent as the day she was born,
    and cradled in joy by her mother.
Everyone who came by to see her
    exclaimed and admired her—
All the fathers and mothers, the neighbors and friends,
    blessed and praised her:

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Your teeth are like a flock of sheep
    coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin,
    not one of them is missing.(A)
Your temples behind your veil(B)
    are like the halves of a pomegranate.(C)
Sixty queens(D) there may be,
    and eighty concubines,(E)
    and virgins beyond number;

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