Song of Solomon 2:15

He compares her eyes to doves. Eastern women spend much pains on their eyes, painting them round with kohl to add to their apparent size and increase their expressiveness. And the comparison of maidens to doves is exceedingly common in the popular poetry:

'Lovely girls are there, like a flock of doves.'

16, 17. She looks forward to their union in the sweet rural district, amongst the cedars and the firs. It is as in the bower which Milton found in the earthly Paradise:

'The roof

Of thickest covert was in woven shade,
Laurel and myrtle, and what higher grew
Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side
Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub
Fenc'd up the verdant wall;......

Here in close recess,

With flowers, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs,
Espoused Eve deckt first her nuptial bed.'

She sings him the little ditty concerning the foxes that ruin the vineyards: any song, on any theme, would have pleased him, and short poems that seem to have no special relevance to the occasion are still in common use amongst the peasants and the Bedouin.

16, 17. She declares their unchangeable, mutual devotion, and bids the shepherd, who pastures his flock in the fields bright with lilies, come to her.