The night watchmen found me – the ones who guard the city walls. “Have you seen my beloved?”

The Beloved about Her Lover: All night long on my bed I longed for my lover. I longed for him but he never appeared.

The Beloved to Her Lover: Tell me, O you whom my heart loves, where do you pasture your sheep? Where do you rest your sheep during the midday heat? Tell me lest I wander around beside the flocks of your companions!

“I will arise and look all around throughout the town, and throughout the streets and squares; I will search for my beloved.” I searched for him but I did not find him.

Scarcely had I passed them by when I found my beloved! I held onto him tightly and would not let him go until I brought him to my mother’s house, to the bedroom chamber of the one who conceived me.