William Shakespeare
1564-1616
Sonnet I
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.
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