# Helen — Poetry character guide

> Helen in Poetry by Edward Thomas.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0017-and-you-helen

## Snapshot

The woman addressed in a poem of impossible gifts, she is the beloved whose losses the speaker would undo if any treasure-house could give back what time has taken.

## Who they are

Helen stands at the center of a poem that catalogues everything the speaker would give her — youth, lands, children, a better art — only to admit the one gift that matters is beyond him: herself, returned, with the power to want and not want in time. She is less a portrait than a reckoning, the person against whom the speaker measures his own poverty of giving. Her presence anchors the collection's recurring question of whether love can ever be proved, repaid, or made whole.

## In the story

### [And You, Helen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_5_se/chapters/and-you-helen)

The recipient of the speaker's imagined gifts and the subject of the poem.

### [Roads](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_5_se/chapters/roads)

A goddess of the roads, associated with Welsh mountain ways and the Mabinogion tales, whose laughter is heard in the thrush's song and the rooster's call.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_5_se/characters/helen
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_5_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_5_se/characters