Page:Collected poems of Flecker.djvu/29

 in single words or lines–many of his recent MS. alterations are now incorporated for the first time. His changes at their most extensive may be seen in the development of "The Bridge of Fire," in that (both versions are given in this volume) of "Narcissus," and in that of "Tenebris Interlucentem." As first published this ran:


 * Once a poor song-bird that had lost her way
 * Sang down in hell upon a blackened bough,
 * Till all the lazy ghosts remembered how
 * The forest trees stood up against the day.


 * Then suddenly they knew that they had died,
 * Hearing this music mock their shadow-land ;
 * And some one there stole forth a timid hand
 * To draw a phantom brother to his side.

In the second version, also of eight lines, each line is shorter by two syllables:


 * A linnet who had lost her way
 * Sang on a blackened bough in Hell,
 * Till all the ghosts remembered well
 * The trees, the wind, the golden day.


 * At last they knew that they had died
 * When they heard music in that land,
 * And some one there stole forth a hand
 * To draw a brother to his side.

The details of this drastic improvement are worth studying. The treatment of the first line is typical. The general word "song-bird" goes, the particular word xxv