A man once walked into a pride of lions in a conquering mood.
In a time when humans existed in the margin left to them by the lions. In a time when power was gotten with force. They lived in the shadows and ate leftovers and were not separated from the lions. They were peers. When their escaping methods failed them and they found themselves eye to eye with a lion, the human's life was in that moment measured by degrees of a lion's mercy.
A man once walked out from the shadows in a conquering mood.

My Brooklyn know-nothings
My hairy counterparts who
You wouldn't think have a soul
To go home to at night
Who do not even have to say it -
I would rather make love all day

Men whos faces were contorted over time with their tortured lives into something you cannot even look at. Something truly ugly. They walk, lanterns swinging, along the railroad tracks to what ramshackle dwellings they after all afford. The inner world of their dwelling places look onto them, their regard for what they call a family, the families' regard for the men. Nobody is grateful. Not a moment of tenderness in their day.