| 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, | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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. |