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Show FIMSHED POETRY Patient Jabor as Blnch as Pino Frenzy Factor Tn Its Production Thero are yet some persons loft who ftmcy that poetry is tho prodnct of a fine frenzy; that the poet genius awakep from a sublimated cataleptic trance to fill page after page with effortles? beatitudes. A number of manuscript Bheets of Longfellow's "Excelsior," which may bo found in Harvard, should not only explode this theory, but give hope to many a discouraged amateur As Longfellow first constructed the firw Verse of this poem it ran: Tho shades of night were falling fast As through an Alpine village passed A youth who, as the peasants sung, Responded in an unknown tongue, Excelsior. This was manifestly weak, as th only obvious reason why the Alpin? peasants sung was that they might afford af-ford a rhymo for the youth's responsa in an unknown tongue. A second trial at the verso, however, not only failed to improve it, but arranged it in suci form that it is diffioult to believo Long-follow Long-follow guilty of the fault. Tho last two lines of the verse were made to read: A youth who boro a pearl of price, A banner with tho strange device. There are not many, even among the magazine poets of today, who ' would consent to refer to a banner as "a pearl of price. ' ' But the poet had by this time three lines to his liking, and the substi tution of "a youth who bore 'mid snow and ice" completed tho verse as it has been read and spoken throughout ths length and breadth of the land, all of which goes to show that the genius of the poet is in the conception, and that the production of tho poem, being quite another matter, lies solely in the direo tion of patient labor. Chicago Herald |