One day, while you work through one of your countless puzzle books, you notice that a sheet of paper has been slipped inside with a curious little poem written on it.
A Study
An ancient man demolished his estate,
And therefore, with enthusiasm innate,
He was bewildered when a hoax was glued
Somewhere beside where he had said adieu.
The dome where five lone defects lost their head
Confounds small pools where diamonds sleep instead.
At first glance you think that it's just another of your brother's nonsense poems, but you notice the slight imperfections in meter and rhyme that aren't usually there, and for some reason you feel that this poem in a particular is positively more cryptic than the others...
What is the poem a study in?
It's been a while, so I thought I'd give a hint:
You turn the page, and notice something written on the other side: 5 4 8 2 5 7 (8)
Answer
An ancient man demolished his estate,
ROMAN - "An ancient man", an anagram of MANOR (estate).
And therefore, with enthusiasm innate,
THUS - "therefore", found in "enthusiasm".
He was bewildered when a hoax was glued
CONFUSED - "bewildered", made from CON (a hoax) and FUSED (glued).
Somewhere beside where he had said adieu.
BY - "beside", sounds like BYE (adieu).
The dome where five lone defects lost their head
VAULT - "dome", made from V (five) and (F)AULT ("lone defects" without the first letter).
Confounds small pools where diamonds sleep instead.
PUZZLES - "confounds", from PUDDLES (small pools) with Z (the sound of sleep) instead of D (diamonds).
Put together, this makes
Roman thus confused by vault puzzles
for which the solution is
CRYPTICS - "puzzles", made from an anagram of SIC (Latin for thus) put by CRYPT (vault).
The poem is indeed a study in
cryptics!
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