To Helen

Helen, thy beauty is to me

 Like those Nicean barks of yore,

That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,

 The weary, way-worn 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.