Edgar Allan Poe: Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

44. TO HELEN (1831)

HELEN, thy beauty is to me
    Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
    The weary way-worn wanderer bore
    To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
    Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
    To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo ! in yon brilliant window-niche
    How statue-like I me thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
    Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
    Are Holy-land !

1831