| Translation and Analysis of Sonnet LIX |
|
| SONNET 59 |
| If there be nothing new*, but that which is |
| Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled, |
| 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; |
| 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.* |
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