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.]

* * * * *

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.

[See note after previous poem.]

1847.

* * * * *

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.

1849.

[The above was addressed to the poet’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Clemm.—­Ed.]

* * * * *

FOR ANNIE.

  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.