Claude McKay

Outcast

For the dim regions whence my fathers came 
My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs. 
Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame; 
My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs. 
I would go back to darkness and to peace, 
But the great western world holds me in fee, 
And I may never hope for full release 
While to its alien gods I bend my knee. 
Something in me is lost, forever lost, 
Some vital thing has gone out of my heart, 
And I must walk the way of life a ghost 
Among the sons of earth, a thing apart; 
For I was born, far from my native clime, 
Under the white man’s menace, out of time.