“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.