How I See It

Author's Note: In this piece I have translated Sonnet 1 by William Shakespeare. I wrote what I thought he was trying to convey in the poem. So here is my version of Shakespeare's sonnet. 

From fairest creatures we desire increase, 

We want the lives of people who are "above" us

That thereby beauty's rose might never die, 

So by wanting more and trying to reach that point, the beauty within us will never go away

But as the riper should by time decease, 

As the older we get,

His tender heir might bear his memory:

The generations upon us will remember us for who we were

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,

We are who we are

Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,

Make yourself feel better by noticing the good things about you.

Making a famine where abundance lies, 

We make ourselves starve for more, when there is plenty of pleasures within us

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

We are our worst enemies, we are too cruel to ourselves

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament 

You are the world's beautiful ornament

And only herald to the gaudy spring, 

And the signal to a beautiful time

Within thine own bud buriest thy content 

We bury our happiness beneath ourselves,

And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding. 

And think of ourselves as peasants and not being worth it.

    Pity the world, or else this glutton be, 

Have pity on the world and you, or else you will become selfish and self centered 

    To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

By keeping your beauty to yourself until the end of your life.