“Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise, But waft the angel on her flight with a pæan 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 damnèd 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 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 labour! 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. [To find the name, 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.] [Illustration] [Illustration: A VALENTINE] AN ENIGMA [Illustration] “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. [To find the name, read as in the preceding poem.] TO HELEN [Illustration]