(I changed the point of view to suit myself)

When i was young, and very well thought of,
I couldn't ask aught that a man would deny;
I nibbled their hearts like a handful of raisins
and never spoke love but I knew that I lied.

But I said to myself, "Ah, they none of them see
There's part of me pure as the whisk of a wave!
My gentleman is late, but he'll find I've been faithful,
and I'll know when I love by the way I behave."

The years drifted over like clouds on the heavens,
the men passed by me like snow on the wind;
I charmed and I cheated, deceived and dissembled,
and I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned.

At last came a gentleman both knowing and tender,
saying "You're not at all what they take you to be!"
I betrayed him before he had quite finished speaking,
and he swallowed cold poison and jumped in the sea.

And I say to myself - when there's time for a word -
as I gracefully grow more debauched and depraved:
"Love may be strong, but a habit is stronger,
and I knew when I loved by the way I behaved."

With apologies to Peter Beagle