I was looking at this thread again and, in particular, at Maryann's post #16, which refers to Tom Clancy's recitation of "The Host of the Air" by Yeats.
YouTube now has a
recording of this Carnegie Hall performance. (It starts at the 2-minute mark.)
I was comparing it to the text of the poem, which you can find, with interpretive notes,
here. Other similar sites have the same text of the poem. The result was quite a surprise.
Not only does Clancy change several lines, he omits stanza 7 completely. (Actually, he starts with S7L3, moves to S8L2, and continues from there on.) Stanza 7 refers to the title theme of the poem and seems to contain its central revelation. The notes explain it further.
Could this have been deliberate? Or might it be that Clancy went in front of a capacity Carnegie Hall audience ill-prepared and got it quite wrong?
The
sleeve notes to the recording say:
Quote:
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The poem, also known as O'Driscoll, was written by William Butler Yeats at the turn of the century, and is considered one of the greatest and most musical, of his works, a set of eleven quatrains.
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This doesn't read like a description of a non-standard "version". And Clancy recited only ten quatrains.
Memorized delivery has its risks. And I suppose this is a good example of how poems in the oral tradition can change over time.
John