To Helen
Edgar Allan Poe, 1831
Poe's poem addressed to a woman whose beauty brings the speaker home to the glory of Greece and the grandeur of Rome.
Helen, thy beauty is to meLike those Nicean barks of yore,That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,The weary, wayworn wanderer boreTo his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,Thy Naiad airs have brought me homeTo the glory that was Greece,And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window-nicheHow statue-like I see thee stand,The agate lamp within thy hand!Ah, Psyche, from the regions whichAre Holy Land!
Famous lines
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.st. 2 (1831; these lines as revised in 1843)In context