The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1910-05-25
THE FEAR OF THE COMET.
%. w. Holmes Poem on the Visit of
Halley's Comet in 1888.

W W. hoIneS Poem on the Visit of
Halley's Comet in 1885.
A Renaissance of Halley's comet
IN 1885 that is worth adding to the
literature of it's temperance in 1910
is to be found in one of the earliest
corrections of poems by Oliver Wen
cell Holmes. In a few predatory
llnes by the author to the publishers
IN this little volume the writer. re-
terrlng to a number of his produc-
lions prior to 1885 therein, which,
Notwithstanding marks of immaturity
and 1nexperience, have been allowed
10 remain, says:
have no doubt you are right in
thinking that there is no harm in
allowing few crudities to keep their
place among the rest. Some of the
more questionable extravagances to
De FOUND have, as I learn, pleased
good many young people. Let us
call these and all the others that we
nave outgrown Juvenile POEMS but
keep them lest some of the smaller
SORT that were, or are, or are to be.
should lament their ABSENCE"
1t is in one of these-'The Com
ct that he depicts the apprehen-
sion that was felt on the approach of
Halley's comet in 1885, and gives
the best remedy for avoiding such
alarm. The poem follows:
The Comet.
The comet! He is on his way,
And singing as he flies;
The whizzing planets. shrink before
The spectre of the skies;
An! we'll 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;
tie turns not to the left nor right.
He asks them not their names:
one spurn from his demoniac heel
Away, away they fly,
Where darkness may be bottled I'D
And sold for "Tyrian dye"
And what would happen to the land.
And how would look the sea,
II the bearded devils path
Our earth should chance to be?
Full hot and high the sea would boil
Full red the forests CLEAN:
Me thought l saw and heard if all
In dyspeptic dream!
saw a tutor take his tube
The comets course to SPY;
heard scream-the gathered RAYS
Had stewed the tutors eve;
n nr% il
We're armed with goggles green:
Pop cracked the guns! whiz flew the
balls!
Bang went the magazine!
saw a poet dip a scroll
Each moment in a tub,
L 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.
saw the scalding pitch roll down
The cracking, sweating pines,
And streams of smoke, like water
spouts,
Burst through the rumbling mines:
asked the firemen why they made
Such noise about the town:
They answered not-but all the while
The brakes went up and down.
| saw a roasting puIlet sit
Upon a baking egg;
| saw a cripple scorch his hand
Distinguishing his leg;
l saw nine geese upon the wing
Toward the frozen pole,
And every mothers gosling fell
Crisped to cracking coal
saw the OK that browsed the grass
Writhe in the blistering rays,
The heritage in his shrinking laws
Was all fiery blaze;
| saw huge fishes, boiled to rags.
Bob through the bubbling brine.
And thought of supper crossed nv
soul;
| had been rash at mine.
Strange sights! strange sounds! O
fearful dream!
It's 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, oh, spare thine evening
meal,
And sweet shall be thy sleep.