THE COMET.

Observer, Volume 5, Issue 116, 2 December 1882, Page 189

THE COMET.

The comet ! He is on his way, And singing as he flies ; The whizzing planet shrinks before The spectre of the skies ; Ah ! well may regal orbs burn blue, And satellites turn pale, Ten million cubic miles of head Ten billion leagues of tail . On, on by whistling spheres of light He flashes and he flames ; He turns not to the left nor right, He aßks them not their names, One spurn from his demoniac heel, — Away, away they fly, Where darkness might be bolted up And sold for " Tyrian dye." And what would happen to the land, And how would look the sea, If in the bearded devil's path Our earth should chance to be ? Full hot and high the sea would boil, Full red the forests gleam ; Methought I saw and heard it all In a dyspeptic dream. I saw a tutor take his tube The comet's course to spy ; I heard a scream, — the gathered rays Had stewed the tutor's eye ; I saw a fort, — the soldiers all Were armed with goggles green ; Pop cracked the guns ! whiz flew the balla ! Bang went the magazine ! I saw a poet dip a scroll Each moment in a tub, I read upon the warping back, " The Dream of Beelzebub ;" He could not see his verses burn, Although his brain was fried. And ever and anon he bent To wet them as they dried. I saw the scalding pitch roll down The crackling, sweating pines, And streams of smoke, like water-spouts, Burst through the rumbling mines ; I asked the firemen why they made Such noise about the town ; They answered not, — but all the while The brakes went up and down. I saw a roasting pullet sit Upon a baking egg j I saw a cripple scorch his hand Extinguishing his leg ; I saw nine geese upon the wing Towards the frozen pole, And every mother's gosling fell Crisped to a crackling coal. I saw the ox that browsed the grass Writhe in the blistering rays, The herbage in his shrinking jaws Was all a fiery blaze ; I saw huge fishes, boiled to rags, Bob through the bubbling brine ; | And thoughts of supper crossed my soul ; I had been rash at mine. Strange sights ! strange sounds ! O fearful dream, Its memory haunts me still, The steaming sea, the crimson glare, That wreathed each wooded, hill ; Stranger ! if through thy reeling brain Such midnight visions sweep, Spare, spare, O, spare thine evening meal And sweet shall be thy sleep. Oliver Wendell Holmes.