Outcast by Claude McKay

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.

This poem is written by Claude McKay, a well-known poet from the Harlem Renaissance. Within that era of time the young black artists used their art form to express their personal experience during the twenties. McKay seems to be speaking from the point of view of that generation as a whole, addressing their common need to remember their roots.
    His tone is very clearly one of longing; of hopeless resistance to the world he is currently in. For example he says “My spirit, bondaged” as if he feels trapped in his present, and wishes to be elsewhere, more specifically back to where his ancestors lived: “forgotten jungle songs.” With “to its alien gods I bend my knee.” He is implying that this new world is still a mystery to him; he doesn’t understand the impetus of their faith.
    This poem clearly uses rhyme as its primary poetic device, example: Came and frame, longs and songs. It also uses symbolism, when saying that his spirit is held in bondage by his body, to say that he feels trapped by the limitation of space and time. Because he is bondaged by his body he can not go back to when and where his ancestors were free in their homeland, out from “under the white man’s menace.”
    This poem expresses a theme of desire to reconstruct the meaning of “Negro” and of exploring Negro heritage and history.