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Show FINISHED POETRY Patient I,a.!or as Much as Fine Frenzy a Factor In Its Production. There are yet some persons left who fancy that poetry is the prodnct of a fine frenzy; that the poet genius awakes from a sublimated cataleptic trance to fill page after page with effortless beatitudes. A number of manuscript sheets of Longfellow's "Excelsior," Which may be found in Harvard, should not only explode this theory, but give hope to many a discouraged amateur. As Longfellow first constructed the first verse of this poem it ran: The shades of night were falling fast As through an Alpine village passed A youth who, as the peasants sung, Responded in an unknown tonnue, Excelsior. This was manifestly weak, as the only obvious reason why the Alpine peasants sung was that they might afford af-ford a rhyme for the youth's response in an unknown tongue. A second trial at the verse, however, not only failed to improve it, but arranged it in such form, that it is difficult to believe Long-fellow Long-fellow guilty of the fault. The last two lirB of the verse were made to read: ' A youth who bore" a pearl of price, "map:nne5p 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 substitution substi-tution of "a youth who bore 'mid snow and ice" completed the verse as it has been read and spoken throughout the 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 the poem, being quite another matter, lies solely in the direction direc-tion of patient labor. Chicago Herald. |
