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 thine own bud buriest thy content And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding. Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ILLUSIONS by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON TO HELEN KELLER - HUMANITARIAN, SOCIAL DEMOCRAT, GREAT SOUL by EDWIN MARKHAM AN ODE TO THE FRAMERS OF THE FRAME BILL by GEORGE GORDON BYRON APOLLO by THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS INTELLECT by RALPH WALDO EMERSON SHE HEARS THE STORM by THOMAS HARDY THE DAUGHTER OF MENDOZA by MIRABEAU BONAPARTE LAMAR FONTENOY, 1745: 2. AFTER THE BATTLE, EARLY DAWN, CLARE COAST by EMILY LAWLESS |