disappointment,—for up to that time, never having read any, he hated poetry,—fell on one of the five or six perfect poems in the world:
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.
Like those Nicean barks of yore
That gently o'er a perfumed sea
The weary, wayworn 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.
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.
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche! From the regions which
Are holy land.
And he knew that he had read the most exquisite, the most insouciant, and the most universal account of every man's heart's desire—Margaret as she would be when she grew tall. He knew little of the glory that was Greece or the grandeur that was
