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!
"Hope is tenacious. It goes on living and working when science has dealt it what should be its deathblow."
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Mending A Break in a Rice Field, Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, 1935.
Thoughts
Such a powerful poem about the necessity of hiding true pain, suffering, and frustration at injustice.
This poem speaks specifically to the African American experience following the Civil War period. Dunbar uses the imagery of wearing a "mask," which hides the reality of suffering behind a joyful facade.
The message of the poem carries over in more general circumstances as well: any in which people are forced to present a brave face in order to survive and internal hardship is not perceived by those outside the community.
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