WEBVTT

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Some of you remember that
at the end of his life,

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William Butler Yeats had an
operation called the Steinach

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Operation in which he was
injected with monkey glands.

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And he was convinced that
this improved his sex

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life in his old age.

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Nevertheless, there
are a number of poems

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that he wrote in
old age in which

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the image of the limp
worm keeps appearing.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And I'm just-- this next
poem is a kind of meditation

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on those two seemingly
contradictory bits

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of information.

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"Monkey glands, monkey glands,
William Yeats, balladeer,

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how can you stiffen
old meters to curse?

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Speaking syntactically
septuagenarians

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tumbled like limp worms
from bed in diverse."

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[FEEBLE LAUGHTER]

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