Awaiting you through him; because you feel The world is praising you for loving him, And would condemn you, did you not. And last, You feel the pleasure deep of self-esteem, Because you fill the public’s and your own Romantic ideas of a mother’s love. Let each component part be now destroyed, And see if still you love him. As a man, He plunges into vice of vilest kinds; His bright reflections on yourself are gone, And people think the worse of you, for him; You never smile, but frown, upon him now, But still you love him dearly! To his vice He adds a crime, a foul and blasting crime; Your pride is gone, you feel a bitter shame, A score of opposites to love creep in; A righteous anger at his foolish sins, A just contempt for nature, weak as his; But yet you love him fondly, for the world Is lauding you for “mother’s holy love”; And you delight its clinging strength to show, You gain in public credit by your woes, And get the soothing martyr’s sympathy. But let him still grow worse, and sink so low, That people say you are disgraced through him, Your warmest friends will not acquaintance own, Your love for such an object’s ridiculed, And gains respect from none. Your only chance Is to disown him. How you loud proclaim, “He’s not my child but by the accident Of birth!” Do yet you love him in your heart? This then because you think yourself so good, So heaven-like, for loving him disgraced, You go to see him in the shameful jail; He spits upon, and beats you from his cell, And tells you that he hates your very name. Now all your love is gone, except the glow Of pity for him chained to dungeon floor; But he’s released, and deeper goes in crime; Then, lastly, Pity yields. Your heart is stone! But love was only touched in selfish part, Yet should you still deny your love is self’s; Of several children, do you not love most The one whose conduct pleases most yourself? But love, unselfish, never could be moved By anything affecting self alone.