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!