Carl Sandburg

Dancer

Dancer - meaning Summary

Desire Observed in Shadow

The poem presents a brief scene of focused observation: a narrator sits in a corner at a masquerade watching a striking dancer in red. She is vividly described as brilliant and sought-after, wearing a false face and shifting between partners. The poem contrasts her public allure and mobility with the narrator's secluded, voyeuristic perspective, suggesting themes of desire, spectacle, and the distance between admired image and solitary observer.

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THE LADY in red, she in the chile con carne red, Brilliant as the shine of a pepper crimson in the summer sun, She behind a false-face, the much sought-after dancer, the most sought-after dancer of all in this masquerade, The lady in red sox and red hat, ankles of willow, crimson arrow amidst the Spanish clashes of music, I sit in a corner watching her dance first with one man and then another.

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