Edgar Allan Poe – To Helen [Helen, thy beauty is to me]

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“Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o’er a perfum’d sea,
The weary wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.“
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“To Helen” [Helen, thy beauty is to me] is a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in March 1836 in the Southern Literary Messenger. It is one of two of Poe’s poems with the title “To Helen”.

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To Helen – Mobile Friendly

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To Helen
by
Edgar Allan Poe

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Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o’er a perfum’d 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 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 —
Ah! Psyche from the regions which
Are Holy land!

E. A. P.