Text: Edgar Allan Poe (ed. Killis Campbell), “A Enigma,” The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Ginn and Company, 1917, p. 121


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[page 121:]

AN ENIGMA   [[v]]

“Seldom we find,” says Solomon Don Dunce,

“Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.

Through all the flimsy things we see at once

[[n]]

As easily as through a Naples bonnet —

5

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.

10

[[v]]

[[n]]

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.

(1848)

 


[[Variants]]

[The following variants appear at the bottom of page 121:]

Title Sonnet (U.M.).

10 tuckermanities: Petrarchanities (U.M.).

 


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Notes:

None.

 

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[S:0 - KCP, 1917] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - A Enigma (ed. K. Campbell, 1917)