Until the mystery we have conjured up
Between us—there again, it came and went—
Smiles at the centuries in their masquerade
As you smiled, then, at me.
Not mockery—quite—
Not irony either; something we evoked
That seems to have caught the ironist off his guard,
And slyly observes the mocker’s naked heel.
So we’ll defend humanity, you and I,
Against the worst of tyrannies,—the blind sneer