Read "If You Had Been True" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Love, in the glow of the sunset, / I have been thinking of you. / Thinking what you might have made me, / If you had been constant and true. / You know I built wonderful castles, / And you had a part in them all; / But you cheated me, Love, you remember. / And down fell each beautiful wall.
Well, you see I lost faith in all women -- / The very worst thing I could do. / Thought they were all of one pattern, / And that was inconstant, untrue. / I know it was but a mad fancy: / Know women are truer than men. / But I wish I had found it out sooner, / Or could live my life over again.
For you see I have wasted my manhood; / I don't really care to tell how. / And if I could live it all over, / I think I could better it now. / I would marry some nice little woman -- / Some other, if I couldn't get you. / And I would be tender and faithful, / And she would be constant and true.