{
 "id": "w-b-yeats/his-phoenix",
 "title": "His Phoenix",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "W. B. Yeats",
 "poet_slug": "w-b-yeats",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Wild Swans at Coole",
 "book_slug": "the-wild-swans-at-coole",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 11,
 "container": "The Wild Swans at Coole",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1917,
  "venue": "The Wild Swans at Coole (1917)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/wildswansatcoole00yeatrich"
  ]
 },
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  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
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   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/fE8wAQAAMAAJ",
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   "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/TFAwAQAAMAAJ",
   "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Irish_Monthly/EMoaAAAAYAAJ",
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  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-21"
 },
 "stats": {
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "There is a queen in China, or maybe it’s in Spain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And birthdays and holidays such praises can be heard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of her unblemished lineaments, a whiteness with no stain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That she might be that sprightly girl who was trodden by a bird;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there’s a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance of his mind:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The young men every night applaud their Gaby’s laughing eye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Ruth St. Denis had more charm although she had poor luck,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From nineteen hundred nine or ten, Pavlova’s had the cry,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there’s a player in the States who gathers up her cloak",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And flings herself out of the room when Juliet would be bride",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With all a woman’s passion, a child’s imperious way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there are⁠—but no matter if there are scores beside:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There’s Margaret and Marjorie and Dorothy and Nan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A Daphne and a Mary who live in privacy;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One’s had her fill of lovers, another’s had but one,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Another boasts, “I pick and choose and have but two or three.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If head and limb have beauty and the instep’s high and light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They can spread out what sail they please for all I have to say,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be but the breakers of men’s hearts or engines of delight:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There’ll be that crowd, that barbarous crowd, through all the centuries,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And who can say but some young belle may walk and talk men wild",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who is my beauty’s equal, though that my heart denies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But not the exact likeness, the simplicity of a child,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that proud look as though she had gazed into the burning sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all the shapely body no tittle gone astray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I mourn for that most lonely thing; and yet God’s will be done,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}