Shakespeare's Sonnets

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, makest waste in niggarding:    Pity the world, or else this glutton be,    To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee. Commentary1. increase: offspring, fruit. 2. beauty's rose: beauty's finest flower. 4. tender: youthful; bear his memory: serve as a memorial of him; bear his memory - as an imprint taken from a seal. 5. contracted; bethrothed. 6. self-substantial fuel: fuel composed of you own substance. 9. fresh: lovely. 10. only: principal; peerless; gaudy; delightful. 11. content: (1) that contained, seed; (2) happiness; take pleasure in yourself alone. 12. churl: (1) boor; (2) miser; makest waste: destroys. 14.eat the world's due, by the grave and thee: consume what should belong to the world by refusing to have children before you die.