When I was in my teens,
I loved dear Margaretta:
I know not what it means,
I can not now forget her!
That vision of the past
My head is ever crazing;
Yet, when I saw her last,
I could not speak for gazing!
Oh, lingering bud of May!
Dear as when first I met her;
Worn in my heart alway,
Life-cherished Margaretta!

We parted near the stile,
As morn was faintly breaking:
For many a weary mile
Oh how my heart was aching!
But distance, time, and change,
Have lost me Margaretta;
And yet 't is sadly strange
That I can not forget her!
O queen of rural maids—
My dark-eyed Margaretta—
The heart the mind upbraids
That struggles to forget her!

My love, I know, will seem
A wayward, boyish folly;
But, ah! it was a dream
Most sweet—most melancholy.
Were mine the world's domain,
To me 't were fortune better
To be a boy again,
And dream of Margaretta.
Oh! memory of the past,
Why linger to regret her?
My first love was my last!
And that is Margaretta!