‘The Song of songs, which is Solomon's.'
The ‘song of songs' means ‘the most wonderful of songs'. It is attributed to Solomon, and opens with a young woman alone, who is aware that she is loved by her shepherd king, and is dreaming of him as her royal ‘beloved'. She is visualizing his delights, and the delights of love, and she assures him in her mind that, in a similar way to all the young women in his kingdom, she desires nothing more than for him to call her to him.
We have to read into her situation what has previously occurred, which must have been something like this. Living in the countryside in the northern part of Palestine, she had been out wandering through her favorite haunts, when one day she came across a handsome young shepherd. There was an immediate attraction between them, but it was some time before he informed her that he was in fact Solomon, the young king of Israel, taking time off from his kingly duties by spending time with some of those who watched over his flocks. Before they separated (or later by messenger) he invited her to a feast that he was holding in his tent. It was with that feast in mind, and the thought of meeting her beloved again, that she was engaging in her initial day dreams. But she would ever think of Solomon in terms of ‘her shepherd', and thus it would be some time before she would appreciate his splendor in full.
Soon, after a brief and chaste courtship which is not without incident, they will be married and will together experience the joys of love, after which there are the ups and downs of marriage before they settle down to a more stable relationship of blissful love and happiness. It is thus a song in praise of purity, chasteness, love and marriage.
So we are probably to see the song as referring to a Solomon, who is looking back romantically and rather idealistically to the time when, as a young and virile man, he first experienced true love, and that to the one who was to be his first wife, a young country maiden from the north who had won his heart. But it is probable that we should also see it as referring to God's loving relationship with His people, and, as a result, to Christ's relationship to His church. We must not, however, interpret everything too pedantically, for we must remember that it is an ode, and that it is written by a romantic.