WEBVTT

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Back to history
again, and then we'll

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move on to some
non-historical things.

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The ending image may require
some explanation, because even

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I'm not old enough to
remember the Hindenburg trying

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to land at Lakehurst,
New Jersey, in 1937.

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But I've seen film of it,
and maybe you have too.

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You recall from that
that the Hindenburg

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was a large-- what do
they call them-- blimp,

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zeppelin-type dirigible crossing
the ocean to the United States.

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And I guess it just about
hooked up on the tower

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in Lakehurst when
it broke into flame.

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And I suppose all the people,
or most of the people,

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died in a terribly
dramatic incident.

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And some reporter-- I've
heard recordings of him--

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was describing the landing
and, of course, not

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expecting anything to go wrong.

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And suddenly, this thing burst
into flames in front of him,

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and he just about flips out
with panic, with hysteria.

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Very dramatic recording
if you ever hear it.

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So at least that
brief picture is

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essential to the
understanding, at least

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at the end of the
poem, because that's

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the last line of the poem.

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Also, as TS Eliot said, a really
good poet doesn't borrow lines,

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he steals them.

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So I stole one line
from Washington Irving,

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of all places, from "The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

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and plugged it in there.

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Maybe you will hear
it as it goes by you.

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Also stole the first
line from a radio

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shrink who was trying to
solve the woes of America

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by proselytizing
that a dog or a cat

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can make you feel
less lonely in life.

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And I find this radiotherapy
incredibly bizarre, if not

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saddening in its simplicity.

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But in any case, it's
supposed to be a happy poem.

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It's called "Acolytes."

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An acolyte is a
religious beginner,

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someone who serves the priest.

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"A dog or a cat can make you
feel less lonely in life.

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They're as good as the
gun collector's magazine

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that you've always
wanted to read,

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and going to the
drugstore you find it,

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or a favorite radio
program broadcast only

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from Grand Island, Nebraska.

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For weeks, you scheme,
turning the backyard

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into an aerial jungle of
wires run between garage,

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and shed, and clothesline.

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And on the designated
night, hunched

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before you're set
in a snowstorm,

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you turn on the radio, and
there it is, sheaves of grain

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flying through the rain.

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The best things, after
all, in life are free.

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They hardly eat anything,
crumbs from your cake,

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scraps of newspaper
you find under hedges.

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And you can take them out for
walks, ducks and geese wobbling

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ahead on strings.

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New converts or
brides going to church

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while waving from their windows,
the neighbors seem a bit more

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piscivorous and passerine.

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But home again, you're as weary
as those baseball players just

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finished a game
of extra innings.

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Yet still not diminished,
you slump in the chimney nook

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while the rabbit, looking
like Friedrich Nietzsche,

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huddles in the corner
and just breathes,

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watching the smoke from your
pipe rise up among the rafters,

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among the chains of dried apples
and the gay festoones of pears,

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watching it curl out under the
eaves, begin to lift the thatch

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roofed from its beams, as
all by itself, here it comes.

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General MacArthur
once again announcing

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the surrender of the Japanese
with a reporter going out

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of his mind, dancing at the
landing of the Hindenburg

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in Lakehurst, New Jersey."

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