Classic Poem

This brilliant stranger from afar,
Does he portend the storms of war:
Parading in the blue expanse,
Does he predict the doom of France?

Perhaps on nobler business sent!
He hovers o'er our continent:
These comets are prodigious things,
They fly without the aid of wings:
From whence they came, or where they go,
You cannot tell, nor do I know.

Do they, indeed, about the sun
In parabolic orbits run? —
It may be so — and some have said
This convex Earth, on which we tread,
This Earth, which now in circles roll'd
Is such an orbit mov'd of old!

Then, sailing through the etherial blue,
The mighty mass, projected, flew
And in the solar beams array'd,
A formidable tail display'd!

Who knows but, as this Comet rolls,
She comes to take a freight of souls,
The souls on earth condemned to wait
Translation to the Comet State.

The blazing Comet, now in sight,
Far southward travels day and night,
It keeps its circle round the pole
And sees the planets near it roll,
But never will their course molest
'Till the Creator sees it best.

Who knows but in yon flaming sphere
The souls from parted bodies are,
Are cloath'd again in nobler dress,
In the Comet find all happiness.

Who knows but, when she quits us here,
The mind is destined to that sphere,
May, while we here her husk entomb,
In Jove's celestial gardens bloom.

If near the sun this Comet strays,
His heated atmospheric rays
May bring new seasons to his clime,
No doubt, his Spring, or Summer time.

His harvests, then, are gather'd in,
His Autumn will its course begin,
When e'er its tail, to disappear,
Becomes a circumambient sphere.

When far remote, beyond our ken
Receding from the view of men,
The Comet shall his course pursue
'Till his aphelion comes in view,

Then is his winter, then his folks
Sit snug at home and pass their jokes,
No doubt, enjoy the evening fire,
The glass, the parson, and the 'squire,
See oceans rage, hear tempests blow,
And scorn them all — as we do now.