Read "An Enigma" by Edgar Allan Poe online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"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.