| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | Renewal | | By Michael Field (Katherine Harris Bradley) (1846–1914) |
| | | AS the young phoenix, duteous to his sire, | |
| Lifts in his beak the creature he has been, | |
| And, lifting o’er the corse broad vans for screen, | |
| Bears it to solitudes, erects a pyre, | |
| And, soon as it is wasted by the fire, | 5 |
| Grids with disdainful claw the ashes clean; | |
| Then spreading unencumber’d wings serene | |
| Mounts to the aether with renew’d desire: | |
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| So joyously I lift myself above | |
| The life I buried in hot flames to-day. | 10 |
| The flames themselves are dead: and I can range | |
| Alone through the untarnish’d sky I love, | |
| And I trust myself, as from the grave I may, | |
| To the enchanting miracles of change. | | | | |
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