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, Thy self 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.
Shakespeare Songs
Song Cycle by Stig Gustav Schönberg
?. From fairest creatures we desire increase  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: English
Authorship:
- by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 1
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot) , no title, appears in Œuvres Complètes de Shakspeare Volume VIII, in Sonnets, no. 1, first published 1863
- FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 1, first published 1857
- GER German (Deutsch) (Ludwig Reinhold Walesrode) , no title, appears in William Shakspeare's sämmtliche Gedichte, in 1. Sonette, no. 1, first published 1840
- ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Total word count: 106