You can’t read the following verses (Song 4:1-5) without both knowing just exactly what the young man delights in in his lovely lover and also all he’s leaving unsaid. Just read it and see what it images for you:
4:1 How beautiful you are, my love,
how very beautiful!
Your eyes are doves
behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats,
moving down the slopes of Gilead.
2 Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes
that have come up from the washing,
all of which bear twins,
and not one among them is bereaved.
3 Your lips are like a crimson thread,
and your mouth is lovely.
Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate
behind your veil.
4 Your neck is like the tower of David,
built in courses;
on it hang a thousand bucklers,
all of them shields of warriors.
5 Your two breasts are like two fawns,
twins of a gazelle,
that feed among the lilies.
How does one “comment” on poetic imagery like this?
Two important lines capture the point: 4:1 and 4:9 reveal that the shepherd-lover loves his beautiful woman and the erotic language in between these verses expresses the language of delight in the beauty of his love. Here’s 4:9:
You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride, you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. She is beautful; she has captured his heart. Therefore, her body is utterly delightful.
He canvasses, surveys, examines, and delights in her eyes, her hair, her teeth, her lips, her cheeks, her neck, and her breasts. For each he finds a potent metaphor that evokes in erotic gaze his delight in her beauty.
Her eyes: like two doves behind a veil.
Her hair: cascading down Mt Gilead like a flock of goats.
Her teeth: like freshly washed ewes.
Her lips: like a scarlet thread accentuating the beauty of her mouth.
Her cheeks: like a pomegranate.
Her neck: like David’s tower
Her breasts: (took him long enough) like two fawns at play among the lilies.