by Poe · Cluster: Greek Mythology · Lust Sexual Desire · Desire
Abstract
Poe’s classic lyric praising Helen’s beauty as a Nicean bark bearing the wanderer home to ‘the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome’. Themes of beauty, idealized love and classical antiquity.
Connections
Topoi: Love as Religion, Unattainable Beloved Motifs: Sea Themes & Concepts: Beauty, Romantic Love Forms & Genres: Lyric Historical References: Classical Antiquity, Greek Mythology Settings: Ancient Greece (2)
Testo integrale / Full text
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!
1831.