The following text is adapted from Countee Cullen’s 1926 poem “Thoughts in a Zoo.” 

They in their cruel traps, and we in ours,  

Survey each other’s rage, and pass the hours  

Commiserating each the other’s woe,  

To mitigate his own pain’s fiery glow.  

Man could but little proffer in exchange  

Save that his cages have a larger range.  

That lion with his lordly, untamed heart  

Has in some man his human counterpart,

Some lofty soul in dreams and visions wrapped,  

But in the stifling flesh securely trapped.