*

Come! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song

be sung! — An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so

young— A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so

young.

"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth, and hated

her for her pride, "And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her

— that she died! "How shall the ritual, then, be read?—the requiem

how be sung "By you—by yours, the evil eye—by yours, the

slanderous tongue "That did to death the innocence that died, and died

so young?"

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath

song Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no

wrong!

The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope,

that flew beside, Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have

been thy bride — For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly

lies, The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her

eyes— The life still there upon her hair—the death upon

her eyes.

IV.

"A vaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge

will I upraise, But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old

days! Let no bell toll!—lest her sweet soul, amid its

hallowed mirth, Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the

damned Earth. To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant

ghost is riven— From Hell unto a high estate far up within the

Heaven— From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the

King of Heaven."

A VALENTINE.

Fon 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 labour!

And yet there is in this no G ordian 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 dope

* Frances Sargent Osgood, the poetess—dead, since Poe. For her opinion of him, see Griswold's Memoir.—Ed. 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 genera/ 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.*

In the last two poems, read the first letter of the first line in connexion 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. The name of the persons to whom addressed will thus appear.

Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length—at length—after so many days