WEBVTT

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Later, I'll read a fragment
from another long poem

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that I like by Walt Whitman.

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And I'm going to wile away
the intervening minutes

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by reading some poems of mine.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I'm afraid, Lois,
you'll be quite nervous

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because these are poems
that are not quite finished,

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and poems I've
never read before,

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and poems which, next
week when I look at them,

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I may decide never
to read again.

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It's good for me to read
them, once at least,

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but I'm not sure about you.

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But here goes.

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This is called In the
Dusk by Les Invalides.

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And the Les Invalides
is that old hospital

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in Paris for wounded
veterans, and outside it

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is a park where often old men
play that game they call bool.

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A few old men play
the old game of bool,

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tossing, holding the
crouch as the ball rolls,

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strolling over and
studying the ground.

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With bools, it's always
the creaking grace,

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the slow amble, the stillness.

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Always the dusk
deepening, always

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the past blowing its glories
behind the distracted eyes,

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always in hospital beds.

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It's the last true men
having fought the [FRENCH],,

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hearing the thin,
sweet clack of ball

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on ball in the immense
darkness of rooms.

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