William Shakespeare
1564-1616
Sonnet 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 burthen
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;
Wh'r we are mended,
or wh'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.
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