"Ahuv libi semaḥ bemitzvot nikhtevu" (My beloved, be happy)

Girdle poem by Shalem Shabazi, signed Alshabazi mashta, mostly in Hebrew, with a small part in Arabic. This song is performed in a scrupulously traditional style that few Yemenite Jewish singers observe today: a combination of melodies, with opening and conclusion in the same melody, which is expanded at the end.

Aharon Cohen and the Kiryat Ono men's ensemble are the performers. The soloist begins and the ensemble joins him in a responsorial manner. Throughout song, from the second stanza onwards, the soloist sings the opening hemistiches and the ensemble sings the closing ones. There are three melodies: the first two stanzas are sung in one melody, the third with another, and the fourth to sixth stanzas with a third melody, which leads to a cadence at the end of the sixth stanza. In the final stanza the first melody is repeated, and expanded at the conclusion (Bahat, 1955: 193), and the blessing Vekulkhem berukhim is sung.