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 itStable, opaque, immortal—all by dint Of the dear names that lie concealed within 't. (79) ANNABEL LEE. Ir was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know And this maiden she lived with no other thought I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea: But we loved with a love which was more than loveI and my ANNabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee ; So that her highborn kinsman came, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, That the wind came out of the cloud by night, But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we- Of many far wiser than we And neither the angels in heaven above, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE; And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side In her tomb by the sounding sea. TO MY MOTHER. BECAUSE I feel that, in the Heavens above, And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you My mother-my own mother, who died early, Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, And thus are dearer than the mother I knew By that infinity with which my wife Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life. (83) |