My own dear love, he is strong and bold
     And he cares not what comes after. 
His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,
     And his eyes are lit with laughter. 
He is jubilant as a flag unfurled—
     Oh, a girl, she’d not forget him. 
My own dear love, he is all my world,—
     And I wish I’d never met him.

My love, he’s mad, and my love, he’s fleet,
     And a wild young wood-thing bore him!
The ways are fair to his roaming feet, 
     And the skies are sunlit for him.
As sharply sweet to my heart he seems
     As the fragrance of acacia. 
My own dear love, he is all my dreams,—
     And I wish he were in Asia.

My love runs by like a day in June,
     And he makes no friends of sorrows.
He’ll tread his galloping rigadoon
     In the pathway of the morrows.
He’ll live his days where the sunbeams start,
     Nor could storm or wind uproot him. 
My own dear love, he is all my heart,—
     And I wish somebody’d shoot him.