This edition was prepared by Michael Gray — free to download, print, rehearse and perform.
From fairest creatures
Staff Notation • Secular, Partsongs
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From fairest creatures by Michael Gray — Lyrics
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 might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
feed'st thy light's flame with selfsubstantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
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About From fairest creatures
These English words, taken from Shakespeare's Sonnet 1, express a plea against vanity and self-absorption. The poet urges a beautiful person to marry and have children, so that their beauty may live on through offspring and not be wasted. The text laments the refusal to 'increase', which would otherwise preserve beauty's legacy. Michael Gray sets this poignant text for SAB choir, creating a sensitive musical response to the Elizabethan sonnet's themes of beauty, procreation, and the passage of time. This secular setting captures the melancholy plea of the original words, urging the subject to consider the wider world and not to be 'cruel' to their own potential.
