Strong ankled, sun burned, almost naked, <br />The daughters of California <br />Educate reluctant humanists; <br />Drive into their skulls with tennis balls <br />The unhappy realization <br />That nature is still stronger than man. <br />The special Hellenic privilege <br />Of the special intellect seeps out <br />At last in this irrigated soil. <br />Sweat of athletes and juice of lovers <br />Are stronger than Socrates’ hemlock; <br />And the games of scrupulous Euclid <br />Vanish in the gymnopaedia.<br /><br />Kenneth Rexroth<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/vitamins-and-roughage/
