Sonnet LIX

If there be nothing new, but that which is	1
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,	2
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss	3
The second burden of a former child!	4
O, that record could with a backward look,	5
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,	6
Show me your image in some antique book,	7
Since mind at first in character was done!	8
That I might see what the old world could say	9
To this composed wonder of your frame;	10
Whether we are mended, or whether better they,	11
Or whether revolution be the same.	12
O, sure I am, the wits of former days	13
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.	14