Disclaimer

Sing, O Muse, or speak, or dance,
and so your audience entrance:
For voice, or step, or gilded phrase -
each art shall mortal minds amaze.
But Muse, ensure whatever work
is safe from harmful law and clerk,
the legal hounds who howl at we
who honor creativity.
Who honors more an artist's skill?
The fan who will the soul distill
from artistry, and so conceive
new tales from what that art achieved?
Or one who simply reads a book
and even if their heart is hooked,
tells none, nor lets their minds be swept
to lands where untouched tales are kept?
But yet let needful words be said,
which still I treat with grief and dread:
I own the narration within,
but not the world it happens in.
It isn't hard to separate
my words from those I emulate.
What's mine is mine, what's not is not,
I lay no claim to other plots.
So guard, Calliope, and Sing!
The humble words which I might bring
would in your speech flourish and thrive,
in ways I could scarcely contrive.
And reader, if you would allow
just one more moment, here and now
to introduce my nascent glory -
Sit back, relax, enjoy the story!