Sonnet 1

by William Shakespeare

  From fairest creatures we desire increase,
  That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
  But as the riper should by time decease,
  His tender heir might bear his memory:
  But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
  Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
  Making a famine where abundance lies,
  Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
  Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
  And only herald to the gaudy spring,
  Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
  And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:
    Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
    To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.