To Helen.docVIP

To Helen Helen, thy beauty is to meLike those Nicean barks of yore，That gently, o’ er a perfumed sea,The weary, way-worn wanderer boreTo his own native shore.?????????????????????????? On desperate seas long wont to roamThy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,Thy Naiad airs have brought me homeTo the glory that was GreeceAnd the grandeur that was Rome。 Lo！In you brilliant window-nicheHow statue-like I see thee standThe agate lamp within thy hand,Ah！Psyche, from the regions whichAre Holy Land Allan Poe was born in an actor’s family in 1809 and his father died when he was only two years old. Edgar was taken into the home of a Richmond merchant, John Allan, and had his foster father’s name as a middle name. In 1827, he entered the U.S. army under an assumed name and at incorrect age. In 1830, he was admitted to the West Point and soon got himself dismissed for neglecting study. Poe lived his life miserably. He was often involved in drinking and gambling. He even attempted suicide. ? There have been strongly divergent evaluations of Poe’s literary significance. Emerson called him ‘‘a jingle man’’, and Lowell called him ‘‘three-fifths genius and two-fifths sheer fudge’’, while Yeats believed he is ‘‘always and for all lands a great lyric poet.’’ Poe has his own theory of poetry. He held that poetry should be the unity of mood or emotion and the beauty of melancholy and believed that beauty lies in the death of a beautiful woman. Poe’s poetry and fiction is a source of influence on modern literature. English writers, such as Rossetti, Swinburne, Stevenson and the French symbolists, such as Baudelaire, are all influenced by him. The following is a poem by Allan Poe. ?致海伦 ??王道余 译 海伦哦，我眼里你的美丽就像昔日尼西亚的小船，轻柔地在飘香的海面，将那旅途劳顿的游子带回他故乡的海岸。 在绝望的海面、亘古波涛无边，你飘飘的秀发，你典雅的脸庞，你水中仙女般的丰姿让我想见希腊的荣光、罗马的庄严。 看哦！在远方的华丽窗龛，我见你如雕像玉立，手里擎着玛瑙灯盏！啊，灵魂之女，你来自哪里，哪里就是圣地！ 创作背景 据作者说，这首诗是为中学一位同学的年轻母亲斯丹娜夫人而作，写的是“我的灵魂的第一次纯洁、理想的爱”。从诗里提到的地理、历史背景来看，对斯丹娜夫人的爱慕和对古希腊史诗《伊利亚特》中的绝世美人海伦的景仰合二为一。而在最后一节里，对