We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile.

These lines (lines 1–3), which open the poem, establish the speaker’s use of the mask as a metaphor for how their community conceals the pain and suffering they experience. Like a comedy mask in theater, the metaphorical mask described by the speaker boasts a large smile. However, this smile “lies” because it “hides” a grimacing face that would be better suited to tragedy. In addition to establishing the mask as the poem’s dominant metaphor, these lines explain why the speaker’s community feels forced to “wear the mask.” Admittedly, the reason remains somewhat enigmatic. In the third line quoted here, the speaker describes their wearing of the mask as the “debt we pay to human guile.” This line clearly implies that the mask is the price the speaker’s community pays for the “guile”—that is, the deviousness or deceit—of others. Although the speaker offers no specific details, the implication is that this “human guile” comes from outside the community itself. In other words, the speaker’s community has experienced harm from the outside world. Such a situation strongly implies conditions of oppression and marginalization.

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

These lines (lines 3–4) close the first stanza. In the first line, the speaker describes how the members of their community all “smile” despite suffering from “torn and bleeding hearts.” In the second line, however, the speaker’s message gets more complicated. The complication emerges on a formal level, through both diction and rhyme. In terms of diction, the phrase “myriad subtleties” contains the two most unusual words in the whole poem. They’re unusual in part because of their length; most of the other words in the poem have only one or two syllables. They’re also unusual because they’re examples of specialized vocabulary in a poem that otherwise consists of very simple language. This phrase also creates complication in relation to the poem’s larger rhyme scheme. The word “subtleties” forms a slant rhyme with the other two A rhymes in the stanza: “lies” (line 1) and “eyes” (line 2). In a poem where every other rhyme is exact, the slant rhyme stands out. These complications evoke a sense of resistance on the speaker’s part, as if the phrase “myriad subtleties” refers to a coded language their community uses to evade the outside world’s understanding.

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!

These lines (lines 10–15) constitute the poem’s third and final stanza. In this stanza, the speaker reiterates the rift between the community’s suffering and its outwardly happy demeanor. However, unlike in the first stanza, which emphasized the public/private split symbolized by the mask, here the speaker places greater stress on the community’s pain. Significantly, the speaker situates this pain in relation to their religion. They make a direct address to Christ, referencing how they and the other members of their community pray to him with their “tortured souls.” They may sing and smile to create the illusion of well-being and righteous faith. However, just as they have been made to suffer in the secular contexts of their social and political lives, their spiritual lives have also been challenged. It is for this reason that the speaker references the difficulty of navigating long miles across a metaphorical landscape covered in “vile” clay. The path the speaker invokes here is a spiritual path that leads to salvation, but the terrain is rough, and the passage not guaranteed. In the face of such uncertainty, the speaker insists, one last time, that they “wear the mask.”

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