While other sons cement their parents’ love,
My birth made but a wider breach in mine,
Just in proportion as my mother loved
Her boy, my father hated him—yes, hated,
Even when I was lisping at his knees
That little language charms all fathers’ hearts.
Neglecting me himself, as I grew up
He neither taught, nor got me taught, to curb
A violent nature, which by love or lash
May even be corrected in a wolf: