To Helen - Edgar Allan Poe

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"To Helen," Poems, 1831
To Helen
by Edgar Allan Poe

Helen, thy beauty is to me
    Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfum'd 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 beauty of fair Greece,
And the grandeur of old Rome.

Lo ! in that little window-niche
    How statue-like I see thee stand!
    The folded scroll within thy hand —
A Psyche from the regions which
    Are Holy land !

-The End-

[In this poem, "To Helen," was addressed to Mrs. Craig Stith Stannard. In a later poem, also titled "To Helen", Helen is Sarah Helen Whitman. ]