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.