At last came threshing-time, the manly season. <br />We kept the thresher thundering by daylight, <br />And rested all the sweeter after dark, <br />Telling of tales, and washing in the river. <br />But one there was, some twenty miles a stranger, <br />Who boasted that he was a mighty wrestler <br />And had not met that valiant pair of shoulders <br />That he could not put down. <br /> <br /> <br />We had a champion there. He looked and listened, <br />He measured off his man, he made his mind up, <br />And thus he brought great honor to his county: <br />'My friend, I've heard you bragging, heard you braying, <br />And now I say, for God's sake come and wrestle.' <br />And thus appealed, the other came, for God's sake, <br />And they did wrestle. <br />They sprang, they gripped, they strained and rocked and twisted, <br />They pounded much good sod to dust and powder, <br />They ripped the garments off each other vainly <br />And showed us many naked bulging muscles, <br />And still were even. <br /> <br /> <br />But while the tide of battle ran so equal, <br />I heard a sound, I took it for a voice, <br />I almost saw it, spitting out a passage <br />Between the haggard jaws of my poor hero, <br />The voice as of a man almost despairing, <br />Hoping again though all his hopes had failed: <br />'By God, I'll have you down in one more minute!' <br />And it was as he said; for in a minute <br />He had him down, by God.<br /><br />John Crowe Ransom<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/wrestling-5/
