Dancing with Despair
I have danced while music played,
and smiled, although despairingly,
through tears at smiles not meant for me.
My soft eyes, though brown and drab,
have strived to glitter, with scant success,
as others shone bright, emitting light
beneath their lashes, lush and long.
While I lurched in crazy drunken spirals,
others, precise, performed their pirouettes
and slid across the polished floor
and smiled and laughed and more:
completely at their ease.
What terminal disease decrees
despair my partner in this dance?
Is there no chance to sit the music out,
a listener, discrete, devout?
While others whirl and dip I slide and slip.
Must I be a half-a-pair with stumbling feet,
inept novice, graceless lout who, led about,
never has an easy air dancing with despair?
Font size:
Submitted on May 01, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 38 sec read
- 7 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJJKKLMMNOMP |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 743 |
Words | 127 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 20 |
Translation
Find a translation for this poem in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Dancing with Despair" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/68912/dancing-with-despair>.
Discuss the poem Dancing with Despair with the community...
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In