A shame to your kin, you good-natured bear, You show no regrets for your lost mountain lair. At play in the cage of your traveling zoo With the child who throws peanuts and apples at you! The lion is wroth and the tiger is sly, But you eat, and twinkle your small black eye; From the top of your pole you look down as if man Were a brother who does what a brother can. Do you never dream of Sierra's height Where your comrades hunt on the trail all night? Do you think such hide and muscles were meant To accept a pampered and slavish content? Resistance that fails is better by far Than submission that fondles its cage and its bar. Break some fetter that binds; go tear up the earth, And show yourself worthy your savage birth. The tiger's snarl and the lion's roar, That pierce unavailing their iron door, Less ignoble seem than the pitiful play Of the mighty paw that was meant to slay. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BUTCHER SHOP by DAVID IGNATOW MOTHER NIGHT by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON MADMAN OF THE SOUTH SIDE by CLARENCE MAJOR SURFACES AND MASKS; 12 by CLARENCE MAJOR MONODY ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAM MARION REEDY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS IN TALL GRASS by CARL SANDBURG |