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, makest waste in niggarding.
SONNET 2
When forty winters shall beseige thy brow
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If thou couldst answer
This fair child of mine Shall sum my count and make my old excuse -
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou art old
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use
SONNET 3
Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
For where is she so fair whose unear’d womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so fond will be the tomb Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime
So thou through windows of thine age shall see
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
SONNET 4
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
SONNET 6
Then let not Winter's ragged hand deface
With beauty’s treasure, ere it be self-kill’d. That use is not forbidden usury, Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thyself to breed another thee, Or ten times happier, be it ten for one; Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigur’d thee: Then what could Death do, if thou shouldst depart, Leaving thee living in posterity? Be not self-will’d, for thou art much too fair, To be Death’s conquest and make worms thine heir*.
*In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd
SONNET 5
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was
But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was
But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet
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Beauty's effectDiscover
with beauty were bereft
Serving with looks his sacred majesty; And having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill, Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, Attending on his golden pilgrimage; But when from high-most pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day, The eyes, ‘fore duteous, now converted are From his low tract and look another way.
SONNET 7
Lo, in the orient when the gracious light
And having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill, Resembling strong youth in his middle age, yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage; But when from high-most pitch, with weary car, Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, ‘fore duteous, now converted are From his low tract and look another way: So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon, Unlook’d on diest, unless thou get a son.
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Doth homage to his new-appearing sight
SONNET 8
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing: Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one, Sings this to thee: ‘Thou single wilt prove none.’
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The man that hath no music in himself
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus
Let no such man be trusted
SONNET 8
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing: Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one, Sings this to thee: ‘Thou single wilt prove none.’
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus
Let no such man be trusted