Classic Poem

AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECDOTE .

Amongst professors of astronomy,
Adepts in the celestial economy,
The name of Herschel's very often cited:
And justly so, for he is hand and glove
With ev'ry bright intelligence above;
Indeed, it was his custom so to stop,
Watching the stars upon the house's top,
That once upon a time he got be-knighted.

In his observatory thus coquetting
With Venus — or with Juno gone astray,
All sublunary matters quite forgetting
In his flirtations with the winking stars,
Acting the spy — it might be upon Mars —
A new Andre;
Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping,
At Dian sleeping;
Or ogling thro' his glass
Some heavenly lass
Tripping with pails along the Milky Way;
Or looking at that Wain of Charles the Martyr's: —
Thus he was sitting, watchman of the sky,
When lo! a something with a tail of flame
Made him exclaim,
" My stars! " — he always puts that stress on my —
" My stars and garters! "

" A comet, sure as I'm alive!
A noble one as I should wish to view;
It can't be Halley's though, that is not due
Till eighteen thirty-five.
Magnificent! — how fine his fiery trail!
Zounds! 'tis a pity, though he comes unsought —
Unasked — unreckoned, — in no human thought —
He ought — he ought — he ought
To have been caught
With scientific salt upon his tail! "

" I looked no more for it, I do declare,
Than the Great Bear!
As sure as Tycho Brahe is dead,
It really entered in my head,
No more than Berenice's Hair! "
Thus musing, Heaven's Grand Inquisitor
Sat gazing on the uninvited visiter
Till John, the serving-man, came to the upper
Regions, with " Please your Honour, come to supper. "

" Supper! good John, to-night I shall not sup
Except on that phenomenon — look up! "
" Not sup! " cried John, thinking with consternation
That supping on a star must be star vation,
Or ev'n to batten
On Ignes Fatui would never fatten.
His visage seemed to say, — that very odd is, —
But still his master the same tune ran on,
" I can't come down, — go to the parlour, John,
And say I 'm supping with the heavenly bodies. "

" The heavenly bodies! " echoed John, " Ahem! "
His mind still full of famishing alarms,
" 'Zooks, if your Honour sups with them ,
In helping, somebody must make long arms! "
He thought his master's stomach was in danger,
But still in the same tone replied the Knight,

" Go down, John, go, I have no appetite,
Say I 'm engaged with a celestial stranger. " —
Quoth John, not much au fait in such affairs,
" Wouldn't the stranger take a bit down stairs?

" No, " said the master, smiling, and no wonder,
At such a blunder,
" The stranger is not quite the thing you think,
He wants no meat or drink,
And one may doubt quite reasonably whether
He has a mouth,
Seeing his head and tail are joined together,
Behold him, — there he is, John, in the South. "

John looked up with his portentous eyes,
Each rolling like a marble in its socket.
At last the fiery tadpole spies,
And, full of Vauxhall reminiscence, cries,
" A rare good rocket! "

" A what! A rocket, John! Far from it!
What you behold, John, is a comet;
One of those most eccentric things
That in all ages
Have puzzled sages
And frightened kings;
With fear of change that flaming meteor, John,
Perplexes sovereigns, throughout its range " —
" Do he? " cried John;
" Well, let him flare on,
I haven't got no sovereigns to change! "