Niceʹan Barks or Nycean Barks

Edgar Poe, in his lyric To Helen, says—

“Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of yore,

That gently oʹer a perfumed sea

The weary, way-worn wanderer bore

The way-worn wanderer was Dionysos or Bacchus, after his renowned conquests. His native shore was the Western Horn, called the Amalthēan Horn. And the Nicean barks were vessels sent from the island Nysa, to which in infancy Dionysos was conveyed to screen him from Rhea. The perfumed sea was the sea surrounding Nysa, a paradisal island.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.