2020

We wear the mask

"We wear the mask" is a song by B. E. Boykin, with text by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Commissioned in 2019 by Mirror Visions ensemble, this piece was revised by Boykin in reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd in 2020.

Audio Track

We wear the mask

Alexis Davis-Hazell, mezzo-soprano and Rosalyn Wright Floyd, piano3:02

B. E. Boykin

Composer

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Poet(s)/Writer(s)

2022

Date

University of California, Irvine, Winifred Smith Hall

Location

This recording was part of a 8pm concert ("My Sister’s Keeper") on Friday, October 14, 2022 during the 25th Anniversary African American Art Song Alliance Conference. The concert venue was Winifred Smith Hall at the University of California, Irvine.

Text

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!