Who Is This Like the Dawn

Read aloud

Someone asks who this woman is who shines like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, and majestic as stars in procession. The question sounds like wonder from a distance. She is not being viewed as an ordinary person passing unnoticed through a crowd. Her presence has become a spectacle of light.

The poem then returns to a quieter scene. The speaker goes down to a walnut grove to see the blossoms of the valley and to check whether the vines and pomegranates are in bloom. The movement from cosmic brightness to a garden inspection is deliberate. Love can lift the imagination toward the moon and sun, then bring attention back to actual buds and fruit.

Before the speaker realizes it, desire has placed the speaker among the royal chariots of the people. The exact meaning of this line is not explained, and we should not pretend to know more than the poem gives us. Desire has brought a sudden movement into the scene, perhaps in imagination, perhaps in a change of scene. The poem lets the movement remain mysterious.

A call asks the Shulammite to come back so that those calling may gaze upon her. Then a question asks why they look at her as on the dance of Mahanaim. The brief lines do not identify every speaker or explain the whole occasion. We can hear the admiration and the question it prompts without filling in an unwritten scene.

The unit reminds us that admiration can be both intimate and public. A loved person's presence may seem radiant to the one who knows that person best, while other people look on and ask what they are seeing. The poem does not turn that wonder into a demand for performance. It allows the beloved to remain more than the crowd's gaze.