Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906)

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guileduplicity; deceitfulness ;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriadmany and diverse  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.What is the speaker praying for? What does his language make you think of?
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!  

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

IWho is the speaker in Stevens's poem? placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenlyuntidy or unclean wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominionrule, control, domination everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

"Anecdote of the Jar" copyright 1954 by Wallace Stevens and renewed 1982 by Holly Stevens, from THE COLLECTED POEMS OF WALLACE STEVENS by Wallace Stevens. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. For on line information about other Random House, Inc. books and authors, see the Internet Web Site at http://www.randomhouse.com