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This discussion reminds me that while reading through the Variorum Edition of Yeats, it seemed to me that most of his later revisions were bad ones. I've noticed also at least one case in one of Robert Frost's most famous poems where he made a later revision which I thought weakened it. Another case is Whitman, whose tampering with the original version of Leaves of Grass often diluted its effect. I suppose the editor of a Selected or Collected poems would have to use the poet's final version, though perhaps with footnotes about some changes. But f you were editing a more general anthology, would you feel obliged to use a poet's final draft of a poem, or would you use earlier ones if you thought they were better? -- =============================================== Jon Corelis http://jcorelis.googlepages.com/joncorelis ===============================================