You speak to me, but does your speech With truest truth your thought convey? I listen to your words and each Is what I wait to hear you say. The pattern that your lips reveal, How does it measure with your mind? What undertones do you conceal? Your smile is sweet - but what's behind? I speak to you, but do I tell The secret working of my brain? Frank honesty would make life hell, And truth be tantamount to pain. When deep into the mind one delves, Appalling verities we view; If we betrayed our inner selves, Would you hate man and I hate you? Are we not strangers each to each, And all alone we live and die? Deception is the stuff of speech, And life a smug and glossy lie, Where puppet-like our parts we play: The first in public we rehearse, The second when we shrink away into our private universe. The soul has its grim hinterland 'Twere better never to explore; Dark jungles where obscenely planned Prowl monsters of primaeval lore; With primal fear our lives are fraught, And cravenly we cower behind The silences of secret thought, The murky mazes of the Mind.