Jan. 19, 2006  To Helen  by Edgar Allan Poe  Listen (RealAudio)
| How to listen  Poem: "To Helen," by Edgar Allan Poe  To Helen
Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That
gently, o'er a perfum'd 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 !  Literary and Historical Notes:
It's the birthday of Julian Barnes, born in Leicester, England
(1946). He's the author of The History of the World in Ten-and-
a-Half Chapters (1989) and Flaubert's Parrot (1984); the latter
won prizes for fiction in both England and France. Both of his
parents were French teachers, and they spent their vacations
driving around the French countryside.  It's the birthday of
Patricia Hi