Home ⇒ 📌Claude Mckay ⇒ Outcast
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.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Crazy Jane And Jack The Journeyman I know, although when looks meet I tremble to the bone, The more I leave the door unlatched The sooner love is gone, For love is but a skein unwound Between the dark and dawn. A lonely ghost the ghost is That to God shall come; I – love’s skein upon the ground, My body […]...
- Psalm 82 God in the *great *assembly stands *Bagnadath-el Of Kings and lordly States, Among the gods* on both his hands. *Bekerev. He judges and debates. How long will ye *pervert the right *Tishphetu With *judgment false and wrong gnavel. Favouring the wicked by your might, Who thence grow bold and strong? *Regard the *weak and fatherless […]...
- Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font; The firefly wakens, waken thou with me. Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. Now lies the Earth all Danae […]...
- The Princess: A Medley: Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me. Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. Now lies the earth all Danaë […]...
- Theory Of Recruiting Sons of bitches Were born With hearts of stone, Cherishing this stone All their life. Children of Sons of bitches Were born With hearts of grenade, In order to Blow to pieces Everything, And to leave as a message for their descendants – Entrails (still smoking entrails) Of sons of bitches....
- Poetry Sometimes I tremble like a storm-swept flower, And seek to hide my tortured soul from thee. Bowing my head in deep humility Before the silent thunder of thy power. Sometimes I flee before thy blazing light, As from the specter of pursuing death; Intimidated lest thy mighty breath, Windways, will sweep me into utter night. […]...
- An ODE ARise my Dove, from mid’st of Pots arise, Thy sully’d Habitation leave, To Dust no longer cleave, Unworthy they of Heaven that will not view the Skies. [Page 83] Thy native Beauty re-assume, Prune each neglected Plume, Till more than Silver white, Then burnisht Gold more bright, Thus ever ready stand to take thy Eternal […]...
- The Book of Urizen: Chapter VIII 1. Urizen explor’d his dens Mountain, moor, & wilderness, With a globe of fire lighting his journey A fearful journey, annoy’d By cruel enormities: forms Of life on his forsaken mountains 2. And his world teemd vast enormities Frightning; faithless; fawning Portions of life; similitudes Of a foot, or a hand, or a head Or […]...
- Born Brothers Equality is absolute or no. Nothing between can stand. We are the sons Of the same sire, or madness breaks and runs Through the rude world. Ridiculous our woe If single pity does not love it. So Our separate fathers love us. No man shuns His poorest child’s embrace. We are the sons Of such, […]...
- Bereavement in their death to feel Bereavement in their death to feel Whom We have never seen A Vital Kinsmanship import Our Soul and theirs between For Stranger Strangers do not mourn There be Immortal friends Whom Death see first ’tis news of this That paralyze Ourselves Who, vital only to Our Thought Such Presence bear away In dying ’tis as […]...
- No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest Sons of the mountains of Scotland, Welshmen of coomb and defile, Breed of the moors of England, Children of Erin’s green isle, We stand four square to the tempest, Whatever the battering hail- No foe shall gather our harvest, Or sit on our stockyard rail. Our women shall walk in honour, Our children shall know […]...
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 118. Contemplate all this work of Tim Contemplate all this work of Time, The giant labouring in his youth; Nor dream of human love and truth, As dying Nature’s earth and lime; But trust that those we call the dead Are breathers of an ampler day For ever nobler ends. They say, The solid earth whereon we tread In tracts of fluent […]...
- A Song of the Road O I will walk with you, my lad, whichever way you fare, You’ll have me, too, the side o’ you, with heart as light as air; No care for where the road you take’s a-leadin’ anywhere, It can but be a joyful ja’nt whilst you journey there. The road you take’s the path o’ love, […]...
- Come, Walk With Me Come, walk with me, There’s only thee To bless my spirit now – We used to love on winter nights To wander through the snow; Can we not woo back old delights? The clouds rush dark and wild They fleck with shade our mountain heights The same as long ago And on the horizon rest […]...
- Early Darkness How can you say Earth should give me joy? Each thing Born is my burden; I cannot succeed With all of you. And you would like to dictate to me, You would like to tell me Who among you is most valuable, Who most resembles me. And you hold up as an example The pure […]...
- Stanzas To The Po River, that rollest by the ancient walls, Where dwells the lady of my love, when she Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls A faint and fleeting memory of me; What if thy deep and ample stream should be A mirror of my heart, where she may read The thousand thoughts I now betray […]...
- The Harpy There was a woman, and she was wise; woefully wise was she; She was old, so old, yet her years all told were but a score and three; And she knew by heart, from finish to start, the Book of Iniquity. There is no hope for such as I on earth, nor yet in Heaven; […]...
- Lines to Him Who Will Understand Them THOU art no more my bosom’s FRIEND; Here must the sweet delusion end, That charm’d my senses many a year, Thro’ smiling summers, winters drear. O, FRIENDSHIP! am I doom’d to find Thou art a phantom of the mind? A glitt’ring shade, an empty name, An air-born vision’s vap’rish flame? And yet, the dear DECEIT […]...
- A Song of the Republic Sons of the South, awake! arise! Sons of the South, and do. Banish from under your bonny skies Those old-world errors and wrongs and lies. Making a hell in a Paradise That belongs to your sons and you. Sons of the South, make choice between (Sons of the South, choose true), The Land of Morn […]...
- What Was Lost I sing what was lost and dread what was won, I walk in a battle fought over again, My king a lost king, and lost soldiers my men; Feet to the Rising and Setting may run, They always beat on the same small stone....
- PEACEFUL GROUND Cool Morning spit on bladed grass. A Thousand silky fingers tickling toes. The strong scent of natures freshly cut hair. Mans spiritual stamping groung toward inner Peace....
- The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly Once I loved a spider When I was born a fly, A velvet-footed spider With a gown of rainbow-dye. She ate my wings and gloated. She bound me with a hair. She drove me to her parlor Above her winding stair. To educate young spiders She took me all apart. My ghost came back to […]...
- To a Young Child Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! as the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you will weep and know […]...
- Spring & Fall: To A Young Child Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! as the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By & by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you wíll weep & know […]...
- The Native-Born We’ve drunk to the Queen God bless her! We’ve drunk to our mothers’ land; We’ve drunk to our English brother, (But he does not understand); We’ve drunk to the wide creation, And the Cross swings low for the mom, Last toast, and of Obligation, A health to the Native-born! They change their skies above them, […]...
- Psalm 90 part 1 v.1-5 C. M. Man frail, and God eternal. Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home. Under the shadow of thy throne Thy saints have dwelt secure; Sufficient is thine arm alone, And our defence is sure. Before the hills […]...
- I Fellowed Sleep I fellowed sleep who kissed me in the brain, Let fall the tear of time; the sleeper’s eye, Shifting to light, turned on me like a moon. So, planning-heeled, I flew along my man And dropped on dreaming and the upward sky. I fled the earth and, naked, climbed the weather, Reaching a second ground […]...
- Stanza Often rebuked, yet always back returning To those first feelings that were born with me, And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning For idle dreams of things which cannot be: Today, I will seek not the shadowy region; Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear; And visions rising, legion after legion, Bring the unreal world too […]...
- The White City I will not toy with it nor bend an inch. Deep in the secret chambers of my heart I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch I bear it nobly as I live my part. My being would be a skeleton, a shell, If this dark Passion that fills my every mood, And makes my […]...
- Hymn 156 Presumption and despair; or, Satan’s various temptations. I hate the tempter and his charms, I hate his flatt’ring breath; The serpent takes a thousand forms To cheat our souls to death. He feeds our hopes with airy dreams, Or kills with slavish fear; And holds us still in wide extremes, Presumption or despair. Now he […]...
- A Grain Of Sand If starry space no limit knows And sun succeeds to sun, There is no reason to suppose Our earth the only one. ‘Mid countless constellations cast A million worlds may be, With each a God to bless or blast And steer to destiny. Just think! A million gods or so To guide each vital stream, […]...
- The Widow at Windsor ‘Ave you ‘eard o’ the Widow at Windsor With a hairy gold crown on ‘er ‘ead? She ‘as ships on the foam she ‘as millions at ‘ome, An’ she pays us poor beggars in red. (Ow, poor beggars in red!) There’s ‘er nick on the cavalry ‘orses, There’s ‘er mark on the medical stores An’ […]...
- The Well of All-Healing THERE’S a cure for sorrow in the well at Ballylee Where the scarlet cressets hang over the trembling pool: And joyful winds are blowing from the Land of Youth to me, And the heart of the earth is full. Many and many a sunbright maiden saw the enchanted land With star faces glimmer up from […]...
- Atavism 1 Sometimes in the open you look up Where birds go by, or just nothing, And wait. A dim feeling comes You were like this once, there was air, And quiet; it was by a lake, or Maybe a river you were alert As an otter and were suddenly born Like the evening star into […]...
- Psalm 23 God our shepherd. My Shepherd is the living Lord; Now shall my wants be well supplied; His providence and holy word Become my safety and my guide. In pastures where salvation grows He makes me feed, he makes me rest; There living water gently flows, And all the food’s divinely blest. My wand’ring feet his […]...
- To A Lady On The Death Of Her Husband GRIM monarch! see, depriv’d of vital breath, A young physician in the dust of death: Dost thou go on incessant to destroy, Our griefs to double, and lay waste our joy? Enough thou never yet wast known to say, Though millions die, the vassals of thy sway: Nor youth, nor science, not the ties of […]...
- The Bell I love thy music, mellow bell, I love thine iron chime, To life or death, to heaven or hell, Which calls the sons of Time. Thy voice upon the deep The home-bound sea-boy hails, It charms his cares to sleep, It cheers him as he sails. To house of God and heavenly joys Thy summons […]...
- English Thornton Here! You sons of the men Who fought with Washington at Valley Forge, And whipped Black Hawk at Starved Rock, Arise! Do battle with the descendants of those Who bought land in the loop when it was waste sand, And sold blankets and guns to the army of Grant, And sat in legislatures in the […]...
- A Mile With Me O who will walk a mile with me Along life’s merry way? A comrade blithe and full of glee, Who dares to laugh out loud and free, And let his frolic fancy play, Like a happy child, through the flowers gay That fill the field and fringe the way Where he walks a mile with […]...
- Veni Creator I LORD of the grass and hill, Lord of the rain, White Overlord of will, Master of pain, I who am dust and air Blown through the halls of death, Like a pale ghost of prayer,- I am thy breath. Lord of the blade and leaf, Lord of the bloom, Sheer Overlord of grief, Master […]...