Sonnet 16. ’Mongst all the creatures in this spacious round

Michael Drayton (1563–1631)

[First printed in 1594 (No. 6), and in all later editions.]

An Allusion to the Phœnix

’MONGST all the creatures in this spacious round,

Of the birds’ kind, the Phœnix is alone:

Which best by you, of living things is known;

None like to that! none like to you is found!

Your Beauty is the hot and splend’rous sun.

The precious spices be your chaste Desire;

Which being kindled by that heavenly fire,

Your life, so like the Phœnix’s begun.

Yourself thus burnèd in that sacred flame,

With so rare sweetness all the heavens perfuming;

Again increasing, as you are consuming,

Only by dying born the very same.

And winged by Fame, you to the stars ascend!

So you, of time shall live beyond the end.