29 September—Readers of yesterday’s Republican-American must have been thrilled to learn that on 28 September 1841 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow completed his short poem “Excelsior.” After having been misinformed about the spontaneous generation of luna moths (which the uncopy-edited or proofread rag still hasn’t corrected), I thought it advisable to confirm that fact, especially since few poets publicize when they finish their poems.

But, sure enough, the first draft of “Excelsior,” imprisoned at Harvard, notes that Henry did indeed finish the poem on 28 September 1841. In fact, it was at three o’clock in the morning, as he told a friend, that he finished the poem that had kept him awake. Iambic tetrameter can do that. I know from experience.

The poem was published three months later in Henry’s “Ballads and Other Poems” and a month after that in a supplement to what’s now the severely crippled and compromised Hartford Courant.

Longfellow was a real poet. He knew how to scan and rhyme. None of this modern crap that can’t even pass as decent prose. Take “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” for instance: “Listen, my children, and you shall hear/Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.”

And “Evangeline”: “This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks.” Makes you want to camp out.

And “The Song of Hiawatha”: “By the shore of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water/Lived a boy named Hiawatha/With his motha and his fatha.”

One of Longfellow’s earliest poems, probably penned during his days at Bowdoin, is a tad more scurrilous: “The girl ran down the burning deck, The ensign did pursue her. The white of an egg ran down her leg, They thought that he did screw her.”

So now to “Excelsior.” It’s absolutely brilliant. A falchion is a broad sword. But don’t even think about the poem’s meaning. Or New York State license plates. Read it out loud and don’t fail to make the most of the sing-song iambic tetrameter.

The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, ‘mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!

“Try not the Pass!” the old man said;
Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!”
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!

“Oh stay,” the maiden said, “and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!”
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

“Beware the pine-tree’s withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!”
This was the peasant’s last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell like a falling star,
Excelsior!