| Personal Helicon 
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    | For Richard Vallance 
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    | As a child, I walked through the Olympics 
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    | of imagination- myth�s perfect bind 
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    | for my tender mind conforming like leaves 
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    | to the fantastic monstrosities 
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    | Gods became the men becoming again 
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    | Deities of many splendored nations 
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    | I savored the rigid writing tablet, 
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    | with fair flesh of Helen, voice of Homer 
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    | So too did I attend rapt, taking in scroll 
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    | the battle of Marathon, of Persians 
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    | and Herotodus dancing with a lyre 
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    | beneath everyman�s celestial globe 
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    | Soon it came to pass that I had to leave 
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    | these childish things on the path behind me 
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    | and thus, I was made to gather only things 
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    | precious to my intents and purposes 
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    | Wearing each my comic and tragic masks 
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    | I took that lyre, with a look quite pensive, 
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    | and a flute to romance the winds and land, 
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    | striding from my cave to unknown sands 
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