Read the Bible

¹ I wish that you were my brother,
    that my mother had nursed you at her breast.
Then, if I met you in the street,
    I could kiss you and no one would mind.
² I would take you to my mother's house,
    where you could teach me love.
I would give you spiced wine,
    my pomegranate wine to drink.

³ Your left hand is under my head,
    and your right hand caresses me.

⁴ Promise me, women of Jerusalem,
    that you will not interrupt our love.

⁵ Who is this coming from the desert,
    arm in arm with her lover?

Under the apple tree I woke you,
    in the place where you were born.
⁶ Close your heart to every love but mine;
    hold no one in your arms but me.
Love is as powerful as death;
    passion is as strong as death itself.
It bursts into flame
    and burns like a raging fire.
⁷ Water cannot put it out;
    no flood can drown it.
But if any tried to buy love with their wealth,
    contempt is all they would get.

⁸ We have a young sister,
    and her breasts are still small.
What will we do for her
    when a young man comes courting?
⁹ If she is a wall,
    we will build her a silver tower.
But if she is a gate,
    we will protect her with panels of cedar.

¹⁰ I am a wall,
    and my breasts are its towers.
My lover knows that with him
    I find contentment and peace.

¹¹ Solomon has a vineyard
    in a place called Baal Hamon.
There are farmers who rent it from him;
    each one pays a thousand silver coins.
¹² Solomon is welcome to his thousand coins,
    and the farmers to two hundred as their share;
I have a vineyard of my own!

¹³ Let me hear your voice from the garden, my love;
    my companions are waiting to hear you speak.

¹⁴ Come to me, my lover, like a gazelle,
    like a young stag on the mountains where spices grow.