I sing it from a woman's point of view:

Black is the colour of my true love's hair
His lips are like some roses fair
He has the sweetest eyes and the gentlest hands
and I love the ground whereon he stands.

I have never been happy with the lyrics of this song (not enough of them), so I wrote an additional one:

"Near my love's house, fair gardens bloom
With colours rare and sweet perfume
The lily pale grows there and the damask rose
They scent the air where my love goes."

BTW "Passing By" is a lovely art song! We all had to learn it when I took voice class in high school. One guy in my chamber choir in college sang it for a master class (he was a very nice tenor) and the instructor got a tear in her eye, she was so charmed by it...