The poem opens with the speaker comparing his love to a "A Red, Red Rose" and to a "melodie / That's sweetly play'd in tune!" In the second and third stanzas, the speaker describes how deep his love is. And it's deep. He will love his "bonnie lass" as long as he is alive, and until the world ends. At the end, he says adios, and notes that he will return, even if he has to walk ten thousand miles.