Analysis of How a Little Girl Danced
Vachel Lindsay 1879 (Springfield) – 1931 (Springfield)
DEDICATED TO LUCY BATES
(Being a reminiscence of certain private theatricals.)
Oh, cabaret dancer, I know a dancer,
Whose eyes have not looked on the feasts that are vain.
I know a dancer, I know a dancer,
Whose soul has no bond with the beasts of the plain:
Judith the dancer, Judith the dancer,
With foot like the snow, and with step like the rain.
Oh, thrice-painted dancer, vaudeville dancer,
Sad in your spangles, with soul all astrain,
I know a dancer, I know a dancer,
Whose laughter and weeping are spiritual gain,
A pure-hearted, high-hearted maiden evangel,
With strength the dark cynical earth to disdain.
Flowers of bright Broadway, you of the chorus,
Who sing in the hope of forgetting your pain:
I turn to a sister of Sainted Cecilia,
A white bird escaping the earth's tangled skein:—
The music of God is her innermost brooding,
The whispering angels her footsteps sustain.
Oh, proud Russian dancer: praise for your dancing.
No clean human passion my rhyme would arraign.
You dance for Apollo with noble devotion,
A high cleansing revel to make the heart sane.
But Judith the dancer prays to a spirit
More white than Apollo and all of his train.
I know a dancer who finds the true Godhead,
Who bends o'er a brazier in Heaven's clear plain.
I know a dancer, I know a dancer,
Who lifts us toward peace, from this earth that is vain:
Judith the dancer, Judith the dancer,
With foot like the snow, and with step like the rain.
Scheme | a a bcBcBC bcBcdc xcdcec ecxcxc xcBcBC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10001101 100010110101 1011011010 11111101111 1101011010 11111101101 1001010010 11101011101 1110101010 10111111 1101011010 110010110001 0110110101 11011001101 1011111010 11001101011 111010110010 01101001101 01011101010 0100100101 11101011110 11101011101 111010110010 01101011011 11001011010 11101001111 1101011011 1110010001011 1101011010 111011111111 1001010010 11101011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,416 |
Words | 260 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 161 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 37 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:18 min read
- 155 Views
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"How a Little Girl Danced" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37293/how-a-little-girl-danced>.
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