To Hellen

To Helen
      by Edgar Allan Poe
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicéan 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!

Summary

    The narrator praises Helen for her beauty, which he compares to a ship bringing a "weary, wayworn wanderer" to his home. Her classic beauty has reminded him of ancient times, and he watches her stand like a statue while holding a stone lamp.

海伦！你的美貌于我 

就像昔时尼西亚帆船  

载着疲惫的旅人    

悠悠飘过芳香的海域    

驶向他故乡的海岸   

我惯于在狂暴的大海飘荡  

你那卷曲的秀发，典雅的面容 

还有你水中仙女般的风姿，引我返航

去向希腊的荣光

去向罗马的辉煌

看！在彼处精美绚烂的窗龛里

你玉立一如雕像

玛瑙灯在你手中光芒明亮。

啊！灵魂化身的美女，

你所来之处，就是圣地！

    He wrote this poem in honor of Jane Stith Stanard, the mother of his childhood friend Rob. Jane Stanard had recently died, and, through his writing, Poe sought to thank her for acting as a second mother to him and show his love.
    In the first stanza, Helen's beauty is soothing.
    Poe uses allusions to classical names and places, as well as certain kinds of images to create the impression of a far-off idealized, unreal woman, like a Greek statue. (words that support the image of an ideal woman are "hyacinth“ and "classic“ "Naiad airs“ and "statue-like. Helen stands, not like a real woman, but like a saint in a "windows-niche. )
    She becomes a symbol both of beauty and of frustration, a romantically idealized, yet inaccessible image of the heart's desire. 
    As is typical with many of Poe's poems, the rhythm and rhyme scheme of "To Helen" is irregular but musical in sound.
    The poem consists of three stanzas of five lines each, where the end rhyme of the first stanza is ABABB, that of the second is ABABA, and that of the third is ABBAB.
    Poe uses soothing, positive words and rhythms to create a fitting tone and atmosphere for the poem.
    His concluding image is that of light, with a "brilliant window niche" and the agate lamp suggesting the glowing of the "Holy Land," for which Helen is the beacon.