Sunday, October 22, 2006

Long wont to roam



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 Niad 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!




'To Helen' by Edgar Allen Poe