Chaplaincy Review: Paul Lawrence Dunbar, "We Wear the Mask"

Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872-1906) was an important African American poet around the turn of the twentieth century. His works were widely published at the time, remarkable for such a young man. He published his first book of poetry in 1892, at the age of twenty. His parents, former slaves, reared him in Dayton, Ohio, where they had settled after the Civil War.

"We Wear the Mask"

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 overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them see only 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!