| 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, | 5 |
| Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel, | |
| Making a famine where abundance lies, | |
| Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. | |
| Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament | |
| And only herald to the gaudy spring, | 10 |
| 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. |