Caliban's Burden

Take up Caliban’s burden—

Go, be deprived of name—

Remain enslaved and exiled

Rebel, he’ll make you lame

To do your back breaking labor

For the lazy, colonizing men—

While these captivating people

Yell at you again.

Take up Caliban’s burden,

Put pen to the English slate!

Say all learned that you want,

Remain unheard until you hate.

If you reason even

A hundred times plain:

Still you won’t reach your master

Who he deems you his bane.

Take up Caliban’s burden—

Have your home be taken

By a man kicked out of kingship,

And whose own “power” he’s mistaken

The cry of hosts ye humour

(Ah, judgmentally) to you, the wild:

"Poor credulous monster!"

Be deemed half-devil and half-child.

Take up Caliban’s burden-

Forget the indigenous days-

Accept the foreign culture,

Forget the old time’s ways

Come now, embrace captivation!

And if all you want is to be freed,

Try again and again and again.

I promise, you won’t succeed.