On Maxwell Street in Chicago, a Jewish fish seller calls out to customers. Sandburg compares his voice to a north wind blowing over corn stubble in January, giving it a rough, biting, outdoor quality. Yet as he holds up herring, his happiness is so graceful and full that the speaker likens him to the famous dancer Pavlova. The man seems “terribly glad”—almost overwhelmingly glad—to be selling fish, to know that fish exist and that people are there to buy them from his cart.
The speaker isn’t making fun of him. There’s real affection here. The poem turns a small, ordinary street scene into something almost like a performance or a blessing. The mood is lively and a little cold, but warm at its center: a working man finds real delight in his daily labor, and the speaker treasures that.