OUTCAST
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or the dim regions whence my fathers cameMy 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 releaseWhile 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 ghostAmong 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.
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