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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
By the name of Annabel Lee ;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

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,
In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee ;

So that her highborn kinsman came,
And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-

Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

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,
Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE :

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
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

TO MY MOTHER.

BECAUSE I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of "Mother,"
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you—
You who are more than mother unto me,

And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
In setting my Virginia's spirit free.

My mother-my own mother, who died early,
Was but the mother of myself; but you

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)

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