WEBVTT

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This is a poem called "Elegy."

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And "Elegy" takes place on
that old mountain road, where

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those goats swing by and--

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it's a poem written in a
very abstract language.

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I mean, a kind of very cool, no
fancy imagery, epistemological,

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phenomenological.

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What it is is that
two people are--

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well, let me kind of tell
most of this in the poem.

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But it's outdoors, and two
people have decided to eat--

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have a meal outside.

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And they're sitting.

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And then they-- it's
kind of late summer.

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It's gotten cool--
[AUDIO OUT] in New England.

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Summers can get pretty
cold, late August,

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some of the evenings.

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And they'd gotten drunk in the--

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slowly.

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It had gotten very
dark, and they

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should go back to the house,
and turn on some lights.

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But then they're just sort
of sitting there at a table.

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And pretty soon they're sitting
in the complete darkness,

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at this table.

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Anyway, and there is a
house-- this dark house there.

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So that's the kind of a scene.

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And so the one who is
speaking is the one

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who is using this
language, trying

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to understand the situation
and puzzle it out.

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And it's called "Elegy."

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"Note, as it gets
darker, that little

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can be ascertained
of the particulars,

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and of their true magnitudes.

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Note the increasing
unreliability of vision.

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The one thing may appear more
or less familiar than other.

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Disengaged from references,
they are in the deepening gloom.

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Nothing to do but sit
and abide, depending

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on memory to provide the vague
outline, the theory of where

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we are tonight, and why we can
see so little of each other,

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and soon will be even less able.

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In the starless summer night,
windy and cold, at a table

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brought out hours ago,
under a huge ash tree.

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Two chairs.

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Two ambiguous figures, each
one relying on the other

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to remain faithful, now that one
can leave without the other one

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knowing.

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[LAUGHTER] This slate, in what
only recently was a garden,

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a festive occasion elaborately
planned for two lovers,

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in the open air, at the end of
a dead end road rarely traveled.

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All of--

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