From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby1 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 foe2, to thy sweet self too cruel:

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament3,

And only herald4 to the gaudy5 spring,

Within thine own bud buriest thy content,

And tender churl6 mak'st waste in niggarding:

Pity the world, or else this glutton7 be,

To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.