Enwritten upon the leaf where now are
peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there
lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the
hearing
Of poets by poets—as
the name is a poet’s, too.
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto—Mendez
Ferdinando—
Still form a synonym for Truth—Cease
trying!
You will not read the riddle,
though you do the best you can do.
1846.
[To discover the names in this and the following 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.]
* * * *
*
“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.
[See note after previous poem.]
1847.
* * * *
*
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.
1849.
[The above was addressed to the poet’s mother-in-law,
Mrs. Clemm.—Ed.]
* * * *
*
Thank Heaven! the crisis—
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last—
And the fever called “Living”
Is conquered at last.
Sadly, I know,
I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
As I lie at full length—
But no matter!—I feel
I am better at length.
