McKay would leave his home of Jamaica, and would go from the United States all the way to Britain before this poem was published, which might contribute to the “long, long years”. During his time in America, he had face the harsh realities of racism, which could’ve been a factor in the “pain”, but the pain could very well have been something going on inside McKay’s head when he wrote this. The pain may also simply be a result of homesickness. http://www.english.illinois.edu/Maps/poets/m_r/mckay/life.htm

Before they were driven to extinction by Europeans, there existed a native people on Jamaica called the Taino. The “dim remembered runes” are possibly the Arawakan language of the Taino people. https://jis.gov.jm/information/jamaican-history/

Traditional dancing is very popular in Jamaica. There are African and European dances, as well as original Jamaican dances. https://www.my-island-jamaica.com/traditional_jamaican_dances.html

During the 17th century the Europeans occupied Jamaica. It was during this time that traditional European instruments like the fiddle and fife were adopted by the Jamaicans. The instruments are used in celebrations and festivals, such as the Junkanoo festival. http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100814/letters/letters2.html

In Clarendon, Jamaica there are two mountain ranges, the Mocho Mountains and the Bullhead mountains, that are both populated by rivers and streams. https://volcanicdegassing.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/mochochoshuenco.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/16/a3/c2/16a3c2952a3d261deb855e8304ac7a06.jpg

Native to both Africa and Jamaica is finger grass (Digitaria), a tall, bending grass that is a brownish-green color. https://hbmt.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/2savanna.jpg https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/taxonomygenus.aspx?id=3700

The Rino Minho runs through the entirety of McKay’s home territory of Clarendon Parish, and its runoffs scatter the surrounding areas. McKay is likely referring to these bodies of water in this line. http://www.map-of-jamaica.co.uk/images/clarendon.gif

There was a fire in Kingston, Jamaica in 1907, something McKay may have seen or heard about. Fire is also a major part of many native African traditions and rituals. https://jamaica-history.weebly.com/fires.html http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/167241475273172973/Africa-The-Fire-Continent

The place that McKay wants to return too could be McKay’s ancestral home of Africa, as he grew up with great pride in his African heritage, or it could be his native home of Jamaica. However, McKay didn’t visit Africa until after Harlem Shadows was published, so the images he creates in this sonnet are likely Jamaican. http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/mckay/life.htm

I Shall Return is a nostalgia sonnet, as the poem is about McKay wanting to return to a place he has left. It was written in 1920, and released in 1922. The title of the poem and the repetition of the phrase “I shall return” throughout has biblical connotations, such as Jesus returning from the dead and Jesus returning to Earth for the Rapture. McKay would officially convert to Catholicism in the late 1930’s. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/claude-mckay