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 otherwise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see thus, 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 reduce the deity to vulgar fractions. We place our own little ambitions and label them ?divine messages?. With our short sight we affect to take a comprehensive view of eternity.

All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.

But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core.

It's all a farce, - these tales they tell About the breezes sighing, And moans astir o'er field and dell, Because the year is dying.

..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.

People are taking it for granted that [the Negro] ought not to work with his head. And it is so easy for these people among whom we are living to believe this; it flatters and satisfies their self-complacency.