Text: Edgar Allan Poe (ed. J. A. Harrison), “An Enigma,” The Complete Works of Edgar Allan PoeVol. VII: Poems (1902), 7:110


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[page 110:]

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.


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Notes:

None.


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[S:0 - JAH07, 1902] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions - The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (J. A. Harrison) (An Enigma)