WE WEAR THE MASK ~BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
You were sweet and small and I didn’t know you at all-
Under your mask you became part of it all-
The winter will befall upon our youth,
We will lose the spring of our vigour
A sheer dullness shall have its firm growth,
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
Where the mind is without fear
And the head is held high,
Bangle sellers are we who bear
Our shining loads to the temple fair…
Who will buy these delicate, bright
Rainbow-tinted circles of light?
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
You found me once again,
you thief of hearts. In drunken ecstasy,
you searched the bazaar and found me.
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,