To Helen - 1831

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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!

© Edgar Allan Poe