"We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

In the first verse, the mask is taken off. The "We" of the poem describes the black community that lives a double life, the masked and the unmasked. Dunbar included the word "mask" in his poem because historically it was a false deceptive role-playing that was acceptable for a survival strategy by blacks and it maintained a sense of empowerment in a racial society. The word "lies" is a simple word but the mask not only lies to the whites, but to

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

Some common words found in the essay are:
Wear Mask, Lawrence Dunbar's, wear mask, black race, Paul Lawrence, survival strategy, paul lawrence dunbar's, white race, paul lawrence, lawrence dunbar's, race america, verse mask, hide grief sadness, race america hide, sadness broken hearts, myriad subtleties, mask poem, world dream otherwise,
Approximate Word count = 623
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)