² I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

³ The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?

⁴ It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

⁶ I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.

⁷ The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.

⁸ I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.