"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 he concealed within 't.
