English Poetry. Claude McKay. Enslaved. Клод Маккей.

Claude McKay (Клод Маккей)

Enslaved

Oh when I think of my long-suffering race,
For weary centuries despised, oppressed,
Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place
In the great life line of the Christian West;
And in the Black Land disinherited,
Robbed in the ancient country of its birth,
My heart grows sick with hate, becomes as lead,
For this my race that has no home on earth.
Then from the dark depths of my soul I cry
To the avenging angel to consume
The white man’s world of wonders utterly:
Let it be swallowed up in earth’s vast womb,
Or upward roll as sacrificial smoke
To liberate my people from its yoke!

Claude McKay’s other poems:

1. One Year After
2. Exhortation: Summer 1919
3. The Wild Goat
4. To a Poet
5. Home Thoughts

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