Sonnet 59

by William Shakespeare

  If there be nothing new, but that which is,
  Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
  Which labouring for invention bear amis
  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,
  Whether we are mended, or whether better they,
  Or whether revolution be the same.
    O sure I am the wits of former days,
    To subjects worse have given admiring praise.