Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO A MAIDEN; WINNER IN THE THOUSAND-METER RACE, by HENRY DE MONTHERLANT



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO A MAIDEN; WINNER IN THE THOUSAND-METER RACE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Let me look at you in silence, until I lower my head
Last Line: The old, virgin surprise of the savage beholding a maid.
Subject(s): Athletes; Health; Mothers; Sports; Victory


Let me look at you in silence, until I lower my head,
Victory winged with the love of fifteen thousand surging men!
As soon—two hundred meters from the stake—as the race was yours
our cries like rumbling water lifted you, bore you on.
You were raised in our arms two hundred meters from the finish:
pale, arching back,
came the end—your outstretched arms and the tape across your breast
and my program in my mouth to free my hands for the clapping!
O power! O best of all! O marvel that you are French!
When the Swedes had given up, when the Americans were exhausted,
when the Tchek was out and the English half a lap behind—
when suddenly you awoke fifteen thousand hearts to the feeling that they
belonged to France!
My heart is so strong within me that I cannot speak.

Flower of health! Fresh and warm! delicate and sturdy! soft and enduring!
True and undisguised and as sprung from the bosom of nature,
equal to me or my better; if I trust this unknown surging emotion
I think I might dare to say to you: "My house shall be thy house."
The born-out-of-duty will spring from the blood of our sacrifice.
In the breast of the strength of the mothers resides the strength of the sons.
O deliverance! At last I have found her whom I may not scorn,—
what have I to do with the draggler, how hold her in love!

To my arms, maid of France! To my arms, skimmer of the wind!
She who wills, she who endures, she who conceives, she who goes in the
forefront,
virgin with shoulders that bear, who flies unwearying!
To my arms, two-meter stride, four litres of vital power!

But suddenly I see myself a vandal.

Then go, fair maid, glory of created things,
she who seeks not the name of well-beloved, but of well-admired.
I shall not make your glance fall, I shall not bare your brow.
I shall not stir the water one more worthy will one day disturb.
I have held you close to me. I have been snared in your fragrance.

I have felt your voice press me like a small hand.
I know too much of you, since I know you in vain.
There are other flowers in the world I can pluck, can remorselessly leave to
wither.

Let the tip of your shoe touch the tip of my shoe.
Let me once more see the vein on your ankle throbbing.
And then I shall go my way, bearing off
locked in my heart
freshening in the depths like an underground lake,
the old, virgin surprise of the savage beholding a maid.





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