One day I observed a grey hair in my head;

Her teeth are like a string of pearls;Down her neck her clustering curlsIn ebony hue vie with the night,And over her features dances light.The twinkling stars enthroned aboveAre sisters to my dearest love.We men should count it joy completeTo lay our service at her feet.But oh what rapture is her kiss!A forecast ’tis of heavenly…

Shall life’s sweet Spring forever last? Look up,Old age approaches ominously near.Oh shake thou off the world, even as the birdShakes off the midnight dew that clogged his wings.Soar upward, seek redemption from thy guiltAnd from the earthly dross that round thee clings.Draw near to God, His holy angels know,For whom His bounteous streams of…

The lovely doe, far from her home, whose lover is angry—why did shelaugh? She laughed at the daughter of Edom and the daughter of Arabia who covet her beloved. Why, they are nothing but wild asses, and how can they compare to the doe who nestled against her gazelle? Where is the spirit of prophecy…

Since the day we parted,I have found nothing that is like your beauty.So I comfort myself with a ripe apple—Its fragrance reminds me of the myrrh of your breath,Its shape of your breasts, its colorOf the color that used to rise to your cheeks.

Let the clouds carry my message.Then might she yield.Lying in the constellation of The Bear,have pity, gazelle, on him who must flyto the stars to reach you.

Her gift, an eaglet’s pinion — now your flight,Anon, the lethal arrow — to upbear!Based on the translation by Solomon Solis-Cohen that’s reproduced on page 377 of A Treasury of Jewish Poetry: From Biblical Times to the Present, edited by Nathan and Marynn Ausubel (Crown Publishers, 1957).