Edgar Allan Poe

To Helen

Summary

This piece is a poem reflecting on the theme of beauty and the powerful effect it can have on the human spirit. The narrator describes Helen's beauty as reminiscent of the comforting ships of ancient times that would carry a weary traveler safely back home. Her physical features, like her hair and face, are likened to elements of Greek and Roman grandeur, symbolizing a connection to a past rich in culture and history. In the final stanza, the narrator imagines Helen as a statue, holding a lamp, suggesting her as a guiding light or beacon, embodying the ideal of beauty as something almost divine, comparable to Psyche from classical mythology, which transports the speaker to a state of wonder often associated with sacred or revered places.

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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 me thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-land!

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