HELEN, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicéan 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 [column 2:]

To the glory that was Greece —

To the grandeur that was Rome.

 

Lo! in that shadowy window-niche

How statue-like I see thee stand,

The folded scroll within thy hand —

Ah! Psyche, from the regions which

Are Holy-land!