Patrick Kavanagh

Miss Universe

Miss Universe - meaning Summary

Redemption Through Ordinary Love

The poem argues that divine compassion persists in ordinary life: God refuses to accept final failure and offers patient, nonjudgmental love. The speaker learns that past mistakes need not provoke remorse because love will persist beyond exhaustion or scorn. This acceptance is embodied in the figure of Miss Universe, a sensual, autonomous woman who cannot be diminished by others’ desires yet is not an idealized virgin—she represents embodied renewal rather than moral perfection.

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I learned, I learned – when one might be inclined To think, too late, you cannot recover your losses – I learned something of the nature of God’s mind, Not the abstract Creator but He who caresses The daily and nightly earth; He who refuses To take failure for an answer till again and again is worn. Love is waiting for you, waiting for the violence that she chooses From the tepidity of the common round beyond exhaustion or scorn. What was once is still and there is no need for remorse; There are no recriminations in Heaven. O the sensual throb Of the explosive body, the tumultuous thighs! Adown a summer lane comes Miss Universe, She whom no lecher’s art can rob Though she is not the virgin who was wise.

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