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An Enigma By Edgar Allan Poe
PAGE: 1

           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.



1847.

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