"The Bystander" - Rosemary Dobson "The Bystander" describes the significance of the insignificant characters in paintings. The speaker in the poem is that figure painted behind/beside the subjects of artworks, where he/it speaks out of its existence to us: in the form of a wing, a squire, a distant figure or part of a crowd. This insignificant character reflects upon several scenes he/it has stood in, such as the two slaughter of …showed first 75 words of 1230 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1230 total…the loneliness of the actor, a single line, "Progressing through the acts alone", stands in the middle of the poem by itself, among the other similar verses. The final line of the first five stanzas do not end a sentence, but instead continues onto the first line of the next, therefore representing the poem as more of a "prose" narrative in long sentences - this poem consists of more physical description than telling of events.