Sonnet 1 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'st 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, Within …showed first 75 words of 328 total…

…showed last 75 words of 328 total…fresh ornament / And only herald to the gaudy spring"--but that, in time, his beauty will fade, and he will bury his "content" within his flower's own bud (that is, he will not pass his beauty on; it will wither with him). In the couplet, the speaker asks the young man to "pity the world" and reproduce, or else be a glutton who, like the grave, eats the beauty he owes to the whole world.