Classic Poem

When your cheap divorce is granted,
Mother, and you leave the West,
Shall I stay with you or father?
Tell me, mother, which the best?
He'll be much surprised, I fear me,
When he knows what you have filed,
And, unless you hover near me,
He'll appropriate your child.

Mother, if the move was needful;
If the income you and he
Shared so long, at last has bred an
Incompatibility;
If you'll be his wife no longer,
When returning from the West,
Which am I to love the stronger?
Tell me, mother, which the best?