On The Bust Of Helen By Canova.[576]

A poem by Lord George Gordon Byron

In this belovéd marble view
Above the works and thoughts of Man,
What Nature could but would not do,
And Beauty and Canova can!
Beyond Imagination's power,
Beyond the Bard's defeated art,
With Immortality her dower,
Behold the Helen of the heart.

November 23, 1816.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 61.]