TGIPF - September 27, 2013

We have begun reading Orwell's 1984, and are plunged immediately into Winston's dystopian world of telescreens, surveillance, and thoughtcrime. It's a perfect place to revisit Dunbar's classic poem about the conflict between inner turmoil at injustice and seeming outer calm.

We Wear the Mask

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;
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!