Classic Poem

God bade me rise, and on my brow did place
A hated mark, whereby all mortals know me,
By which a child unto a child can show me,
An odium, a disgrace!

Then to the land of Nod upon the plain,
An outcast, but impenitent, He sent me,
There to know agony and to repent me
In unattended pain.

I went rebellious with my treasured hate,
And sullen through the desert now I wander,
But when upon my mighty dreams I ponder,
I know that they were great!