Read the poem: ” An Enigma “

by Edgar Allan Poe

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American Literature – American Poetry – Edgar Allan Poe – Poems of Later Life – Poems of Manhood – Poems of Youth – Doubtful Poems – Prose Poems
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To My Mother > > >

Poems of Later Life

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.

{To discover the names in the preceding and this poem, read the first letter of the first line in connection with the second letter of the second line, the third letter of the third line, the fourth, of the fourth and so on, to the end.}

< < < A Valentine
To My Mother > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – Edgar Allan Poe – Poems of Later Life – Poems of Manhood – Poems of Youth – Doubtful Poems – Prose Poems

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by Edgar Allan Poe

Poems of Later Life

An Enigma

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