Topic: Identity

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 over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only...

By Paul Laurence Dunbar
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04 December

Back

They ask me where I’ve been, And what I’ve done and seen. But what can I reply Who know it wasn’t I, But someone, just like me, Who went across the sea And with my head and hands Slew men in foreign lands … Though I must bear the blame Because he bore my...

By Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
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09 November

“O Christ! My fit is mastering me!”

O Christ! My fit is mastering me! What the rebel said gaily adjusting his throat to the rope-noose, What the savage at the stump, his eye-sockets empty, his mouth spirting whoops and defiance, What stills the traveler come to the vault at Mount Vernon, What sobers the Brooklyn boy...

By Walt Whitman
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16 January