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!
(1896)
- Paul Laurence Dunbar, born 27 June 1872.
Poet, novelist, and playwright who became the first African-American
poet to earn nation-wide distinction and acceptance. The New York Times
called him "a true singer of the people — white or black." However, in
his preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry (1931) James Weldon
Johnson criticized Dunbar's dialect poems for fostering stereotypes of
blacks as comical or pathetic and reinforcing the restriction that
blacks write only scenes of plantation life. Writer Maya Angelou called
her autobiographical book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) after a
line from Dunbar's poem "Sympathy" and named Dunbar an inspiration for
her "writing ambition" and uses his imagery of a caged bird like a
chained slave throughout much of her writings.
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!
(1896)
- Paul Laurence Dunbar, born 27 June 1872.
Poet, novelist, and playwright who became the first African-American poet to earn nation-wide distinction and acceptance. The New York Times called him "a true singer of the people — white or black." However, in his preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry (1931) James Weldon Johnson criticized Dunbar's dialect poems for fostering stereotypes of blacks as comical or pathetic and reinforcing the restriction that blacks write only scenes of plantation life. Writer Maya Angelou called her autobiographical book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) after a line from Dunbar's poem "Sympathy" and named Dunbar an inspiration for her "writing ambition" and uses his imagery of a caged bird like a chained slave throughout much of her writings.
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!
(1896)
- Paul Laurence Dunbar, born 27 June 1872.
Poet, novelist, and playwright who became the first African-American poet to earn nation-wide distinction and acceptance. The New York Times called him "a true singer of the people — white or black." However, in his preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry (1931) James Weldon Johnson criticized Dunbar's dialect poems for fostering stereotypes of blacks as comical or pathetic and reinforcing the restriction that blacks write only scenes of plantation life. Writer Maya Angelou called her autobiographical book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) after a line from Dunbar's poem "Sympathy" and named Dunbar an inspiration for her "writing ambition" and uses his imagery of a caged bird like a chained slave throughout much of her writings.
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