"While often read today as a romantic lyric, it was composed to be sung to a Sephardic tune formerly used for *Lecha Dodi*, the mystical hymn welcoming Shabbat. The overlay of a modern English love poem onto an ancient Hebrew liturgical melody exemplifies the Romantic longing for fusion between the sacred and the sensual, the historical and the contemporary, and Byron’s lyrics, in their simplicity and grace, convey a spiritualized beauty reminiscent of the Sabbath Queen, the kabbalistic feminine embodiment of holiness that *Lecha Dodi* celebrates. That Byron was willing to collaborate on a song rooted in Jewish mystical tradition further suggests that he saw Judaism not as a fossilized faith but as a living source of poetic inspiration."Music posted below.