To Helen 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 see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand, Ah! Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land!
Interpretation
This quote expresses deep admiration and longing for a beloved, comparing her beauty to ancient and idyllic imagery.
In this poem, Edgar Allan Poe uses rich imagery to convey his deep affection for Helen, portraying her beauty as reminiscent of ancient Greek and Roman grandeur. The speaker feels a sense of homecoming and solace in her presence, highlighting the transformative power of love and beauty, which brings a weary soul comfort and joy, reminiscent of the classical ideals of beauty and divinity.
In practice
This quote can be used in a wedding speech to express love and admiration for a partner.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her.
A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn't have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense, Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood.
What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
What most did not understand then was that I was not only married to the man I loved, but I was also married to the movement that I loved.
Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time. - The Great Gatsby.
It is part of the nature of every definitive love that sooner or later it can reach the beloved only in infinity.
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