To Helen - 1831

Helen, thy beauty is to me

        Like those Nicean barks of yore,

      That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,

        The weary, wayworn 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 see thee stand,

        The agate lamp within thy hand!

      Ah, Psyche, from the regions which

        Are Holy Land!