WEBVTT

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This poem is called
"Strictly Bucolic,"

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and it's basically a
poem about utopias.

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I always enjoyed reading
utopian literature,

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and this is the kind of poem
that one day just sort of came

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out of those many,
many readings.

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As you know, utopias
are always pastoral.

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I mean, there's always a
lot of cows there and sheep.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So it's almost like
sort of someone,

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the speaker in the
poem is almost someone

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who has just found himself or
herself in one of these places.

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And so, "Strictly Bucolic."

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Are these mellifluous
sheep, and these,

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the meadows, made twice
mellifluous by their bleating?

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Is that the famous
mechanical wind up

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shepherd who comes with
instructions and service

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manual?

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This must be the regulation
white fleece, bleached

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and starched to
perfection, and we

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could be posing for our
first communion pictures

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except for the nasty horns.

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I'm beginning to think this
might be the Angelic Breeders

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Association's Millennial
Company Picnic,

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all expenses paid, with
a few large black dogs

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as special guests.

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These dogs serve as
ushers and usherettes.

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They're always studying
the rules, the exigencies

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of proper deportment,
when they're

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not reading
Theocritus, or wagging

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their tails at the approach of
Theodora, or is it Theodosius,

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or even Theodoric?

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They are theomorfic, of course.

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They theologize.

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Theogony is their favorite.

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They also love theomachy.

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Now they hand out
the blue ribbons.

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Ah, there is one for
everyone, plus the caldrons

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of stinking cabbage and
boiled turnips, which

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don't figure in this idyll.

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