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’s 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 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.
Note
This opening sonnet urges the fair youth not to hoard his beauty but to pass it
on, otherwise he becomes both enemy and devourer of his own gifts. It captures
the tension between self-regard and legacy, between beauty enjoyed in the
present and beauty entrusted to time.
Reflection
I find myself wondering: what does it mean today to “increase” beauty — is it
only about children, or also about multiplying generosity, ideas, art? And what
happens when we bury our gifts “within our own bud”?
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