Thro' depths of ether; coasts unnumber'd Worlds,
Of more than solar glory; doubles wide
Heav'n's mighty cape; and then revisits earth,
From the long travel of a thousand years."
The quotation given on the title-page of this volume is the first stanza of a poem published in the Illustrated London News of March 25, 1843, concerning the great Comet of 1843. Some other stanzas deserve reproduction:—
"Thou comest whence no mortal seer can know—
Thou goest whither nothing human dreams—
Thy mission, tho' so bright,
Is speculation's gloom!
We can but gaze upon the starry dust
Thy lightening wheels upturn
"Along Heav'n's road, and call thee charioteer,
Or names which prove that man cannot baptize
Such giant births as thou
With aught descriptive term!
Comet, or fiery star, or feeding light
To myriad viewless suns.
"Roll on, thou child of wedded time and space,
Eccentric offspring of Eternal Pow'r,—
Be thy portent to us
Or good or ill, the same—
We'll pay thee symbol worship for thy cause,
And in submission bow.
"Com'st thou in anger, we will not repine—
Com'st thou in harmless beauty, we'll adore,
And through thee bless the ONE
Who by His simple Word
Can call creations like to thine from nought
And end them all again!
"Beautiful—lustrous as the heav'ns can be
On vernal nights with their commission'd stars,
How much more do they seem,
When unaccustom'd lights,
Like thine shoot forth from out the sapphire throne
Whereon the GREAT ONE sits!"
Another poet took up the running in a subsequent number of the same newspaper (April 22, 1843):—
