Shakespeare's Sonnet 1

For Cathy, a scientist I admire and a friend I know in real life.

Sonnet 1

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decrease,
His tender heir mught bear his memeory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’st 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.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.

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And here is my first summarizing couplet…

Don’t hoard your beauty. Give the world the gift
Of looks you have. The end will be too swift.

Well… it captures one of the themes of this poem.