Monday, December 23, 2024 Text is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 licence.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

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We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
     We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
     We wear the mask!
--
We Wear The Mask, in the 1913 collection of his work, The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar.

 
Paul Laurence Dunbar

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