And waved their arms towards the height;
He heeded not, but through the mist
Plunged steeply down and fiercely hissed,
"Excelsior!"

"Put on the brake!" Experience said;
"The stars, my boy, are overhead;
The pit of Tophet's deep and wide."
A sudden snarl of hate replied,
"Excelsior!"

"O stay," cried Sanity, "and cool
Thy fevered head in yonder pool!"
The balefire smouldered in his eye,
And still he muttered, hurtling by,
"Excelsior!"

"Beware the awful precipice!
Beware the bottomless abyss!"
This was Discretion's last Good-night.
He gurgled, as he dropped from sight,
"Excelsior!"

At day-break, when the punctual sun
Explored the hill-tops one by one,
And scoured the solitary steep,
An echo rose from out the deep,
"Excelsior!"

And, from the deeper depths that lay