This poem describes the masquerade as an act. The masked dancers are dressed in flashy, flamboyant garments. Throughout the entire night, they drink, dance, laugh, and play. Everything they do is just a game, with nothing genuine in their hearts. Behind those masks – those hollow laughs – those shallow flirtations, lies their true selves. The front they put on is just a way they try to control what others know about their real selves.

In the last stanza, after the speaker [me] describes the entire masquerade, he [or she in this case :D] turns to the reader. Is your life a masquerade? Are you walking around in life wearing a “mask” and controlling how much people know about your true self? Is the life you’re living just an act, or are you willing to pull off that mask you’ve been wearing your entire life – to reveal your beautiful self – as ugly as you may think it is…