For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes, Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda, Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.

Search narrowly the lines!--they hold a treasure Divine--a talisman--an amulet That must be worn _at heart_. Search well the measure-- The words--the syllables! Do not forget The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!

And yet there is in this no Gordian knot Which one might not undo without a sabre, If one could merely comprehend the plot.

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.

And I rest so composedly, Now in my bed, That any beholder Might fancy me dead-- Might start at beholding me Thinking me dead.

The moaning and groaning, The sighing and sobbing, Are quieted now, With that horrible throbbing At heart:--ah, that horrible, Horrible throbbing!

The sickness--the nausea-- The pitiless pain-- Have ceased, with the fever That maddened my brain-- With the fever called "Living"

That burned in my brain.

And oh! of all tortures _That_ torture the worst Has abated--the terrible Torture of thirst, For the naphthaline river Of Pa.s.sion accurst:-- I have drank of a water That quenches all thirst:--

Of a water that flows, With a lullaby sound, From a spring but a very few Feet under ground-- From a cavern not very far Down under ground.

And ah! let it never Be foolishly said That my room it is gloomy And narrow my bed-- For man never slept In a different bed; And, to _sleep_, you must slumber In just such a bed.

My tantalized spirit Here blandly reposes, Forgetting, or never Regretting its roses-- Its old agitations Of myrtles and roses:

For now, while so quietly Lying, it fancies A holier odor About it, of pansies-- A rosemary odor, Commingled with pansies-- With rue and the beautiful Puritan pansies.

And so it lies happily, Bathing in many A dream of the truth And the beauty of Annie-- Drowned in a bath Of the tresses of Annie.

She tenderly kissed me, She fondly caressed, And then I fell gently To sleep on her breast-- Deeply to sleep From the heaven of her breast.