Edgar Allan Poe

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AN ENIGMA.


"Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,

"Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet. Through all the flimsy things we see at once As easily as through a Naples bonnet-- Trash of all trash!--how can a lady don it? Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff-- Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it." And, veritably, Sol is right enough. The general tuckermanities are arrant Bubbles--ephemeral and so transparent-- But this is, now--you may depend upon it-- Stable, opaque, immortal--all by dint Of the dear names that lie concealed within't.


[See note after previous poem.]

1847.





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