New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1858-11-16
isen d9rlesrs 9aiIg Crssteut,
fT'Toin the Louisville Journal,
The Comet.
81 REv. 7. HEMrsTEAp.

The Comet
BY REV i. HEsirsFEAp.
led bv Ho hand along the fiery path
save the 1maipofant, from out the CULTS,
Tie nayernH 81 ifmitable space,
From nights feBl0tesb and nnsounded seas
Yatbse every drop is some Respondent sun,
Thou fushest forth in5mystery and awe,
o rover Of the grand and solemn heavens
What thousands turn the wondering gaze 70 thee
At this calmn hour. where thou 1ost sheathe tny
pale,
Tremendous sword In the abyss Of stars
with quigering nerve the rapt astronomer
poisss the mighty tube and hings reia'
An nasean enYb 1pon thy flaming Jaws
10 bring thee nigh that be nlaT read Wy olfSn,
+ And trace the inscription on thg ReIy pL9m,
Aud map thy journey thfo9 Y w ore
The pfettling child through the am wlh9o" paae'
ggEilsE tgyilinht settles on the crimson nillsi
+ iFfs bis rnpisf eve and wonders what thou aFL.
M +ar5ned. qniestered men whose horny hands
With honest toll have earned the bread That MAKES
rpfsir .log}y homes q shrine for happiness,
Fs0se Nv the way and turn thoughtful glance
1Ipon tlis fiery stranger. The old man
fFban whose ewes the years have spead finn
sStfat glings 4 haze across the midday sun,
TnFns half ia vain to where thy streaming locks
Leave on the vault their track OF marry hFes
Sav. what art thea that hlazest on our eyes
81 strangely and 50 wildly SO unlike
The heavenly host the planets the sweet moon,
Aud earth, with all her clouds ana streams and
groves
That run their dazzling, everlasting round
Without d pause q jar a moment lost
Or note diseordant in the glorious scale
Thou rushest down, unbidden and alone,
Upon the night from out the frosty space,
The CULTS OF being, the uutrodden realms
KNOWN bat to God. What coudst thou tell of them
ii power were thine to carve thy history
In words Of fame along the evening vault
What royal hieToglyphics dost thou bring,
What radiant prophecies what omens, sounds
From the eternities, if our cold ears
Could hear and cur dali eyes interpret themf
Where is thy birthplace, what thy errand here
Bathing Thy sides IN the cool waves Of night,
Whilst the great hurricane Of Gods swift breath
Streams D er thy brow and blows thy fiery locks
backward in floods oil pallid flame to bend
Across the headlands ot the uniVerse2
What isthy purpose in that glorious plan
Which knows no jars Or discords? where the
bourne
ia which thou sweepest onward with speed
That battles eontemplationl Dost thou come
10 tell as of our littleness, that we
Have lost communion with the Invisible?
10 tell Us that our lives are dry and poor
And CHASTITY with our vices that, like thine,
Our path Is hayward, wild, far, far away
From Him who is the Center and the Sun
OF peace, Joy, glory, Immortality?
Il this the lesson thou would,st downward pour
Upon the world from thy mysterious track q
"a lesson that already hath been carved
In darkness, carnage, smoke despair and grief,
On rock and flower on every foot of earth
And man's most aching heart Art thou type
or our sad world with ALL its multitndes
OF homeless, blind despairing, human souls,
Crying fer light yet eleaying to the dark,
Writhing beneath the thirst that burns their lips
Yet turnng madly from the Blessed Fount
1to4u of
Pale roger Of the night, and art thou here
10 tell the oft reverberated tale
That we ale snitten, banished from the songs
And flowers Of lite's prmeval harmonies3
That we are fallen from beauty, strength and love
That our thoughts, blind, discOrdant walk no more
The bright, melodons highway Of the stars,
But, like thee, broken from tbs Central Sun
And Fount, whose every beam and wave is life,
They wander ehartless, hopeless, down the void
of night aud clouds and everlasting storms
Does the ethereal tract chou rovest look
Ground unfamiliar to thine eye, or hath
Thy flaming bulk travelled the selisame round
In the dim ages gone, go long ago
That all the sand, grains which the moaning sea
Breathes on and losses from bis frothy lips,
Must fail to equal the stupendous lapse2
Hereafter shall the children Of the earth
Behold thy quiYering, vast, ill-omened lamp
Biazoning the night; OF does the mystic path
Thou treadest, darkling, seek the unknown realms,
The seas of crude uniformed, chaotic worlds,
The fathomless tracts, the awful solitudes,
Whence neither chance nor years nor Gods high
will
Shall give thee TO mems eyes forevermore?
Thou answerest not save with thy fiery hair
That streams and quivers up the starry dome
AS II ID winds that DER thy forehead blow
From the eteTnities thou sweepest on
TO thy uneharted and mysterious goal
Even while gaze thy splendor fades away
From the cold heavens into the solemn depths,
Without sound, thon sinlest and art gone.