I.

From faireft creatures we defire increase,
That thereby beauty's rofe 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'ft thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thyself thy foe, to thy fweet felf 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.

II.

When forty winters fhall befiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held :
Then being afk'd where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lufty days,
To say, within thine own deep-funken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
If thou couldft anfwer This fair child of mine
Shall fum my count and make my old excuse,'
Proving his beauty by fucceffion thine!

This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.