Personal Helicon- Seamus Heaney

In Greek mythology Helicon was a river that ran across the land until Orpheus, a hero back in that time, was killed and the women who did it went to the river to wash off the bloodstains. Now it's said that this river runs under the Earth so it can't assist in the killing of men. This relates to the well in Heaney's poem because no reflection from above ground can be seen at the bottom, and it refers to Greek mythology by saying that it's beneath Narcissus. Also as a child he is so facinated my wells which seem to have no end and go underground like the Helicon river.
     At first it seemed that this poem was just strictly descriptive about a young boy who was intrigued by wells and reflecting back on it as an adult. As an adult he's grown out of this juvenile obsession and now focuses his efforts on writing. He makes a connection when he was a child he would yell into the wells to hear his own echos and have "a clean new music" in his voice. Now as he's matured he looks at himself by his writing, and that writing is the echo back that is a self reflection of who he is. Both ways allow him to look at himself as a second party. Now, hes just realized a more mature way of doing it.
      He picked such a dark way of seeing himself, instead of looking into a clear pond or shouting in the mountains to see the reflections and echos of himself. I thought that was definitely interesting. I liked this poem and the hidden meaning that you had to work at to figure it out.