Meryl Monday: Miss Streep recites “To an athlete dying young” at Denys funeral in “Out of Africa”

When I saw Out of Africa for the first and only time, I was a college student.

I remember being absolutely transfixed by the film and my experience of watching it was so perfect. It was near the beginning of my now decades-long stretch as a Meryl Streep groupie.

Who knew that there was still so much to come?

Miss Streep and Robert Redford were such a dazzling pair. She played a Danish author and baroness named Karen Blixen who moves with her husband to Africa to start a coffee plantation. The marriage is not a good one [hubby is a bug cheater!] and Karen eventually falls in love with noted hunter and adventurer Denys Finch-Hatton [Redford]. She begins to want more from him than the simple friendship/relationship they have and pushes marriage, but Denys still wants his freedom.

Denys is killed in a plane crash and this scene takes place at his funeral.