To Helen

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!