"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 he concealed within 't.
Return to the Edgar Allan Poe library , or . . . Read the next poem; Annabel Lee