Poem by William Shakespeare | Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase | Literature/poems

Tweet about this video! #socratica #socraticashakespeare Poem by William Shakespeare | Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase | Literature/poems Sonnet 1 by William Shakespeare is one of the “Fair Youth” sonnets encouraging a young man to marry and have children (one of the so-called “procreation sonnets”). It follows the pattern of three quatrains and a couplet written in iambic pentameter, with an ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme. ******** Full text: 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