I laugh and weep as near to false mirrors, -
Suspect they’ve played on me an artful joke:
The hooks of noses and the grins of heroes -
As during the Venetian fancy-talk!

The coil interlocks and I’m in it -
They grasp me and involve in the saltation, -
Well-well, I see my normal face indeed
Was taken for the mask of stupid cation.

Petards and ticker tapes - they cannot fit, -
And masks are looking with an objurgation, -
They roar that again I’ve missed the beat,
That hitting partner’s foot is groovy action.

What can I do? To vamoose, clenching fists?
Or maybe to have fun with all these graces?..
I hope that under masks of balmy beasts
A lot of them have humanistic faces.

Here one and all in wigs can take you in, -
Somebody’s bookish and another’s fabby...
My neighbour at the right is harlequin,
Yet one is hangman and a third is gabby.

One man was trying to whiten himself
Another covers from publicity his face
And someone even cannot now discern
His own face from bound masking days.

I’m stepping with a laugh on dancing-pan, -
But still I’m qualmish side by the side with them:
What if somebody likes the mask-hangman
And doesn’t like to take it down then?

What, if a harlequin, admiring his grief face,
Forever feels so sad while heart will bask?
What if a dolt or fool in any case
Does not remember to take off his mask?

How not to miss a benignant, kind face,
How can I guess all honest guys and brocks? -
When everybody puts a mask in case,
For not-to-hurt themselves by acute rocks.

Well, though, I’ve sunk in masking mystery, -
I’m sure that my prognosis is exact:
That mask of coldness in recurrent history -
Is a defence from slapping big impact.

I’m hunting after masks just everywhere,
But no one will be asked to open-greet, -
What if the masks are thrown off, and there -
Are same half-faces that disguise and fit?