To Helen - Edgar Allen Poe

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.

Helen, thy beauty is to me Like the starry Greek ideal, Whose heavenly limbs, by night, I see, And dream of, though I wake, in zeal To follow where they lead.

Helen, thy beauty is to me The glory that was Greece, The grandeur that was Rome— A fading though immortal theme, Heard in the echoing gloom And trailed along the dreaming tomb.