Episode One! This is an ASMR podcast where I whisper poems to you. This episode has two poems. They are: We wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar and Third from Violets and Other Tales by Alice Ruth lyrics We Wear the Mask BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

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!

VIOLETS AND OTHER TALES ALICE·RUTH·MOORE THIRD

When all the world has grown full cold to thee, And man—proud pygmy—shrugs all scornfully, And bitter, blinding tears flow gushing forth, Because of thine own sorrows and poor plight, Then turn ye swift to nature's page, And read there passions, immeasurably far Greater than thine own in all their littleness. For nature has her sorrows and her joys, As all the piled-up mountains and low vales Will silently attest—and hang thy head In dire confusion, for having dared To moan at thine own miseries When God and nature suffer silently.