Agoloso Presents - Atondido Stories Agoloso Presents - Mama Mada | Page 86

Mama Mada
We Wear the Mask
by 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!
Remembering the Springs at Ch’ih-Chou
by Li Po
Peach-tree flowers over rising waters.
White drowned stones, then free again.
Wistaria-blossom on quivering branches.
Clear blue sky. The waxing moon.
How many tight-coiled scrolls of bracken,
On green tracks where I once walked?
When I’m back from exile in Yeh-lang,
There I’ll transmute my bones to gold.
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