They caught him, the one black as pitch, and held him against his will.
He shudders amidst the fences, despondent and degraded, hanging his head.
Why won't they just set him free? Why would they choose this for him?
He was a king once, the most valiant stallion of them all.
He ran swiftly as an eagle flies, the ground rushing away beneath him,
his mane whipping behind him like blazing tendrils of flame.
His strength was undefied, his pride undefiled, his heart unbroken.
He was a prince among the wild ones, a lord of the beautiful creatures.
Sweltering within his eyes was the spirit of those who know no fear,
an untamed thing: rough, raw, unbridled and uncaressed by man.
Snaring him with the searing ropes of imprisonment and bondage,
they degraded him, making him a mere corpse, a shell of his former self.
They slayed the seething beast he was and stole away everything he loved,
standing triumphantly as they witnessed the fall of what they had captured.
Fancying themselves masters of everything unpredictable and foreign,
they bestowed upon him a life he had done nothing to deserve.
They killed what he was and had always been, a spirit free to roam the earth.
And now he stands, a spectacle of the demise of everything free.
The onlookers cheer in raucous pleasure at the misery of his imprisoned soul.
How proud they are of their latest prey: a creature undeserving of such an indignity.
Never again will he rove the earth that he once ruled.
