| SONNET 1 |
PARAPHRASE |
| FROM fairest creatures we desire increase, |
We desire that all created things may grow more plentiful, |
| That thereby beauty's rose might never die, |
So that nature's beauty may not die out, |
| But as the riper should by time decease, |
But as an old man dies at the hand of time, |
| His tender heir might bear his memory: |
He leaves an heir to carry on his memory: |
| But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, |
But you, interested only in your own beauty, |
| Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel, |
Feed the radiant light of life with self-regarding fuel, |
| Making a famine where abundance lies, |
Making a void of beauty by so obsessing over your own looks, |
| Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. |
With this behavior you are being cruel to yourself. |
| Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament |
You are now the newest ornament in the world, young and beautiful |
| And only herald to the gaudy spring, |
And the chief messenger of spring, |
| Within thine own bud buriest thy content |
But you are burying the gifts you have been given within yourself |
| And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding. |
And, dear one, because you deny others your beauty, you are actually wasting it.l |
| Pity the world, or else this glutton be, |
Take pity on the world, or else be regarded as a selfish glutton, |
| To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee. |
By the laws of God and nature you must create a child, so that the grave does not devour the memory of your loveliness. |
Sign up for the 
