Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
RenewalMichael Field (Katherine Harris Bradley) (18461914)
A
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,
Grids with disdainful claw the ashes clean;
Then spreading unencumber’d wings serene
Mounts to the aether with renew’d desire:
The life I buried in hot flames to-day.
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.