Classic Poem

I WAS born on a winter's morn,
Welcomed to life with hate and scorn,
Torn from a famished mother's side,
Who left me here, with a laugh, and — died;
Left me here, with the curse of life,
To be tossed about in the burning strife,
Linked to nothing, but shame and pain,
Echoing nothing, but man's disdain;
O, that I might again be born,
With treble my strength of hate and scorn!

I was born by a sudden shock, —
Born by the blow of a ruffian sire,
Given to air, as the blasted rock
Gives out the reddening roaring fire.
My sire was stone; but my dark blood
Ran its round like a fiery flood,
Rushing through every tingling vein,
And flaming ever at man's disdain;
Ready to give back, night or morn,
Hate for hate, and scorn for scorn!

They cast me out, in my hungry need,
(A dog, whom none would own nor feed,)
Without a home, without a meal,
And bade me go forth — to slay or steal!
What wonder, God! had my hands been red
With the blood of a host in secret shed!
But, no: I fought on the free sea-wave,
And perilled my life for my plunder brave,
And never yet shrank, in nerve or breath,
But struck, as the pirate strikes, — to death!