Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

I asked professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me, what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile, as though I was trying to fool with them.
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Des Plaines River
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.

I wish to God I never saw you, Mag.
I wish you never quit your job and came along with me.
I wish we never bought a license and a white dress
For you to get married in the day we ran off to the minister
And told him we would love each other and take care of each other
Always and always, as long as the sun and the rain lasts anywhere.
Yes, I'm wishing now you lived somewhere away from here
And I was a bum on the bumpers a thousand miles away, dead broke.

I wish the kids had never come,
And the rent, and coal, and clothes to pay for,
And the grocery man calling for cash.
Every day, cash for beans and prunes.
I wish to God I never saw you, Mag!
I wish to God the kids had never come!.

Everybody loved Chick Lorimer in our town,
Far off
Everybody loved her.
So we all love a wild girl keeping a hold
On a dream she wants.
Nobody knows now where Chick Lorimer went.
Nobody knows why she packed her trunk.
A few old things and is gone.

One with her little chin
Thrust ahead of her
And her soft hair blowing careless
From under a wide hat,
Dancer, singer, a laughing passionate lover.

Were there ten men or a hundred hunting Chick?
Were there five men or fifty with aching hearts?
Everybody loved Chick Lorimer.
Nobody knows where she's gone.