I have a couple of observations to add to Q's post of 10 May 04 - 01:55 PM. My father had a book of "College Songs", copyright 1917 if I remember right. Upidee, with lyrics based on the Longfellow poem, was among them. The nonsense words were slightly different from Q's version; for example, replace the second "Tral la la, Tral la la!" in each stanza with "Tral la la, la la!" The watchman's rattle came only after the last verse. A more substantive change is "sheaf" to "sheath". Since a faulchion (or falchion) is a sword, you would more likely draw it from a sheath than from a sheaf of wheat or a sheaf of papers, for example.