Sonnet LIX.

LIX.

If there be nothing new, but that which is

Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,

Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss

The second burden of a former child!

O! that record could with a backward look,

Even of five hundred courses of the sun,

Show me your image in some antique book,

Since mind at first in character was done!

That I might see what the old world could say

To this composed wonder of your frame;

Whe'r we are mended, or whe'r better they,

Or whether revolution be the same.

O! sure I am, the wits of former days

To subjects worse have given admiring praise.