Page:Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale.djvu/40

30 

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;

Whether 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.

 

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,

Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:

And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,

Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

 3 labouring for invention: striving for originality

5 record: memory

8 in character: in letters

10 composed wonder: wonderful composition

11 mended: advanced beyond our predecessors

whe'r: whether

12 whether revolution be the same: whether all things come round again  4 In sequent toil contend; Cf. n.

5 main: flood

7 Crooked: malignant

9 transfix the flourish: remove the embellishment

10 delves the parallels: digs wrinkles

13 times in hope: future times 