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.
July 26, 2008 at 2:14 am |
[...] nothing” (20); “If there be nothing new [...] how are our brains beguil’d” (59); “And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow” (60); “needy nothing trimm’d [...]