Suggestion to just feel the text noted but not taken - I know why it was suggested, and for some this might be a good approach, but I struggle to divorce my feelings when I read from a curiosity and desire to understand the meaning and purpose of the writing, and don't really see the point in just focusing on the feeling when dwelling on the meaning brings out the feeling more richly!
Ecclesiastes seems to be written towards the end of Solomon's life, looking back on his vain pursuit of things other than God - and is an indication that Solomon did turn back to God at the end of his life - but that is beside the point right now. The Song of Solomon is at the other end of his life, the beginning. The exact year is not known, but the reading of the Song gives no indications of any other wives in the picture, and it's presence in Scripture without negative comment does lend validity to this being Solomon's first wife.
I know and have known many people who see this as either exclusively or predominantly a song of the relationship between either Christ and His Church, or an individual Christian. I have to disagree with this - a lot of the imagery does not make sense when applied first to God's/Christ's relationship with His people, and it is very unlikely that the original readers would have taken this idea, though I have not looked up the rabbinical tradition concerning this. It talks of love, a wedding, intimacy - there is no question in my mind but that the primary way to understand this book is simply as a love song between two people enjoying the journey into and through marriage with each other. This does not negate that there are 'types' or lessons about Christ's relationship with the Church/believers that can be drawn from the passage. After all, husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, and if this is a model of righteous love between a husband and wife then we can see similarities between this love and the love Christ has for the Church. However, the primary message is concerning love between a couple.
The Song tells an united story, so it seems to be one song rather than a group of several, though it relates events happening over a timeframe of months to short years. There are descriptions of very intimate situations, but I would hesitate to call it erotica - erotica to my understanding is designed to titillate, whereas the wording in the Song seems to rejoice in God's gift of intimacy but yet preserve it in respectful privacy.
So, having introduced the book in a way, I shall move on to the first two chapters!
In the first two chapters we see two people very much in love. They are emotional, everything about the other person is beautiful to them - physically, their smell, their name, their actions! To spend time with each other is a delight! We see a common self-consciousness from the Shulammite, conscious both of her appearance (dark from working in the vineyard) and her lower social status - she is in love with the king, after all!
He sees nothing to detract from her beauty - he loves everything about her. He compares her features to the richest and most glorious things he can think of - and she responds in kind.They do things together, and enjoy the flowers and the fruits of the earth. He desires to keep their love pure, and to strive to catch and remove anything that would spoil their love like foxes spoil the grapes. It is beautiful, it is pure, it is enjoyable. She desires to be chaste: "Do not stir or awaken love until it pleases," Songs 2:7b, even though her feelings make them feel sick because she longs for him: "I am sick with love" Songs 2:5b - and she desires others to keep them accountable to this.
Now me, I haven't felt love like this for another person yet. If I end up pursuing a relationship with someone, then I will enjoy the growth of that glorious relationship that God has designed - until then, I simply delight in knowing God as One Who created these gifts and pleasures, and Who has given us the ability to express our feelings in poetry.
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