“Let him talk,” said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to reply. “Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience. I am satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle. In truth, he is too cunning to be acute. There is no _stamen_ in his wisdom. It is all head and no body—like the pictures of the goddess Laverna—or at least all head and shoulders, like a codfish. But he is a good fellow, after all. I like him especially for one master stroke of cant, by which he has attained that reputation for ingenuity which he possesses. I mean the way he has ‘_de nier ce qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est pas_.’”
The spring has come, the low south wind Is breathing sweet,— The showers are patt’ring in the wood, Like fairy feet.
Hark! in yon silent grove a bird Pours out its lay,— Such strains, I ween, have not been heard For many a day.
The feath’ry clouds scud o’er the sky, The sun between,— A thousand rain-drops glisten bright, Upon the green.
And such is life—an April morn, A changing sky,— To mingled joy and grief we’re born, And born to die. A. A. I.
Say magic strain—from whence thy wild note straying? Comes it in sadness, or in raptured glee? Art thou a thing of earth, that sweetly playing, Blends in each fitful blast, so tenderly?
Or, art thou from the star-gem’d vault of Heav’n, Perchance the music of some distant sphere, That faintly echoes on the gales of even, To claim from earth—grief’s solitary tear?
Art thou the revelling of some fairy sprite, Tripping the dewy world fantastically, To keep its tryst beneath the clear moonlight, Awak’ning tones of deepest minstrelsy?
Or, art thou, breathing from a holier clime, A voice, that calleth tremulously low; To lure the enraptured soul to things divine, Far from deluding joys it meets below?
Thou com’st with inspiration ’mid thy sighing, A melody, unearthly and unknown; A mingled strain, that on the night-breeze dying, Wakens the heart-strings to thy thrilling tone.
Recalling wanderings of the spirit-past, The wayward visions of our fleeting youth; The ling’ring day-dreams that in mem’ry last, Untouch’d by Time’s realities of truth.
Again we roam where forest-shadows blending, Ring with the gladness of our playful hours, Along the murm’ring stream once more we’re wending, Lured by the sunny mead, soft winds, and flowers—