Langston Hughes, "Lament for Dark Peoples" (1924)
But the white men came.
I was a black man, too,
But the white men came.
They drove me out of the forest.
They took me away from the jungles.
I lost my trees.
I lost my silver moons.
Now they've caged me
In the circus of civilization.
Now I herd with the many--
Caged in the circus of civilization.
Published in The Crisis, June 1924
Also published in The Weary Blues, 1926