WEBVTT

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I come to you from St.
Louis, and I come to you

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with great difficulty
from St. Louis.

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We had a three day
blizzard in St. Louis,

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and we sat for four hours in
the airport waiting to see

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if the plane would take off.

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And it finally did.

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So you can imagine how
pleased I am to be here.

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I really am pleased to be here.

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I'm going to begin
with three light poems,

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beginning with an older one,
the second part of footnotes

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to the autobiography
of Bertrand Russell.

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I read the autobiography
of Bertrand Russell

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and found that there
were some unintentionally

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funny, I thought, comments.

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And I wrote a poem about
one of these comments.

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Unlike my other poems, I
should mention two references

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or allusions in this brief poem.

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Dunn's flea is the flea
in John Dunn's poem

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in which the flea is said to
marry two lovers by biting

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their two bodies and mingling
their two bloods in his one

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body.

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And, "The two gazed at each
other with a wild surmise,"

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is the last phrase or clause of
Keats' poem about the discovery

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of the Pacific this vast and
awesome and uncharted expanse

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in which the discoverers
gazed at each other

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with a wild surmise.

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So this is the quotation
that set off the poem.

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"Her objections to marrying
him are the following, A,

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he sleeps with seven
dogs on his bed.

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She couldn't sleep a wink
in such circumstances."

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B, C, D, the rest were all
very reasonable objections.

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This seems in a
world where love must

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take its chances undo
distaste for the first

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of its circumstances.

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What is so snug a sleeper could
be more rare than to sense

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and so snuggling a crowd
something lacking there?

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And it seems that the lady lacks
sensitivity to how brilliant

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her high Menil
reception might be.

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First of the heated bed, he'd
push aside seven browsing dogs

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to insert one blushing bride.

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And surely all other
nuptial welcome

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pales before a sweet thrashing
given her by seven tails.

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14 ears attuned to
their master's voice

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would attend the orisons
of their master's choice

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in bitches.

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And should some done reading
flea propose a speedy union,

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he'd suffered 28 paws.

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Garlanded, guarded, graced
with panting devotion,

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the human pair would
partake of wedded emotion.

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She with unwinking
eyes on the dogs

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and he jostling dogs
with his old impunity

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until under his lips
her eyelids would close.

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And the dear beast
of the heart come

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to discompose the bed where
on seven pairs of canine eyes

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would gaze at each other
with a wild surmise.

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