| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Idea | | 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 |
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’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. | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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. | | | |
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