His brow is
corrugated with grief, but the flashing of the eye denotes a lack
of intellectual coherence which any alienist would diagnose at a
glance as evidence of total dementia, even were not confirmatory
proof offered by his action in huckstering for a product which
doesn't exist, in a language which no one present can understand.
The most delirious typhoid fever patient you ever saw would know
better than that.
To continue:
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!
The last line gives him away still more completely. He is groaning
now, where a moment before he was clarioning. A bit later, with
one of those shifts characteristic of the mentally unbalanced, his
mood changes and again he is shouting. He's worse than a cuckoo
clock, that boy.
"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!
These three verses round out the picture.
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