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. The venerable citizen
warns him against the Pass; pass privileges up that mountain have
all been suspended. A kind-hearted maiden tenders hospitalities
of a most generous nature, considering that she never saw the
young man before. Some people might even go so far as to say