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.