Some days he wore his teacher's mask,
It was his little trick
To disguise himself from students
When feeling rather sick.

He put it on and just like that
He wore the biggest smile -
He laughed and joked and taught them well,
At least for a little while.

The problem with the teacher's mask
Was that it wouldn't go.
He needed it when feeling down
And that was always so.

He wore it when he'd woken up
On the wrong side of the bed.
He wore it when he wasn't feeling
Quite right in the head.

He wore it when he fell in love
And broke his feeble heart.
He wore it when his friend had died
And his life was torn apart.

He wore it for so very long
He soon forgot his face.
He soon forgot his misery.
He kept it in its place.

He kept it for so very long.
It was a masquerade
So perfect that nobody could
Have seen through the charade.

And then that fateful day arrived:
He wrote that, "If they ask,
When rope is found around my neck,
I wore my teacher's mask."