d not be fulfilled, and therefore solemn. I believe that when he decided to review his poem, it was much to heavy for what he had desired to convey, and he changed the specific memory to a general one, and made the poem more specific when it came to the butterfly. In the March poem, there are many exclamatory, short sentences, taking us from demanding the butterfly to stay to the poet’s youthful pounces on the butterfly, and then the poet surprises us with the softly sentimental last two lines about his sister. In the March poem, he gives very little detail about his current surroundings, but describes the motions of the young children and their surroundings carefully. In the April poem, however, all the detail is given to the current time and place, and no specifics at all to “summer days.” In the March poem, the poem is the thoughts that the vision of the butterfly revives in the poet, in the April poem, he examines the butterfly then speaks to it in the next stanza. I prefer the March poem, if only for the mood. I think that the April poem is less awkward in leading from one thought to the next, but it seems a bit frivolous to me, and almost forced, where the emotion of the March poem seems stronger. If poetry is “emotion recollected in tranquility,” I believe the March poem does this better than the April poem....
