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THE COMET: A POEM.
BOSTON: Printed and Sold by B. GREEN and Comp. in Newbury-street, and D. GOOKIN, at the Corner of Water-street, Cornhil. 1744.
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THE COMET.
DESCEND,
Urania, and inspire my verse,
I raise my song to sing your kindred stars;
I aim to rove where glitt'ring comets stray,
Trace the bright wand'rers thro' th' Aetherial way,
And all around th' Almighty's pow'r proclaim,
Where worlds can roll, or suns incessant flame.
See! heav'nly muse, view with attentive eyes,
The ruddy wonder of the ev'ning skies!
From star, to star, the burning ruin rolls,
Beams thro' the Aether, and alarms the poles:
Around the earth the wond'ring nations gaze,
On the dire terrors of the lengthen'd blaze,
While, trailing on, they dream its sparkling hair,
Shakes famine, earthquake, pestilence and war:
Illusions vain! remote from human things,
Where other planets roll in other rings
It travels vast; and all around proclaims
A world in chaos, or an earth in flames.
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So, thro' the Aether, swept the ancient earth,
Ere time, and form, and beauty first had birth,
Unshap'd and void, thro' space immense it roam'd,
Till spoke the GOD—and
Eden instant bloom'd.
What ruin! what confusion might be hurl'd,
By such a ball, upon our guilty world?
Witness, ye waves, which in the deluge spread,
Whelm'd o'er the earth, and stretch'd the nations dead.
Down heav'n's high steep, wide-spread the steaming train
Rush'd on the fields, and pour'd the floods of rain;
The dark abyss, attracted into day,
Gush'd o'er the mountain-tops, and ror'd away;
The tost ark, tott'ring, thro' its fabrick shook,
Involv'd in clouds and darkness, foam and smoke,
By tempests plung'd along from steep to steep,
Bounds to the clouds, or dashes down the deep.
Ye angels! guard her thro' the stormy scene,
Till the gay rainbow arch the heav'ns serene.
But, O my muse, swift must the time come on,
When fresh inspir'd, and fervid from the sun,
The flagrant Stranger shapes a diff'rent path,
And from its annual orbit drags the earth.
Ye fancy, mortals! distant as ye are,
All calm and placid round the sailing star,
[Page 4] In gentle rays serenely gleams the head,
And easy luster thro' the train is spread:
Ah, ye perceive not what loud tumult reigns
Thro' the hot regions of its wild domains;
What hideous thunder the wide Aether shocks,
Of tumbling mountains, and of crashing rocks:
Fierce seas of flame beat round the burning shores,
And ev'ry tempest raves, and every furnace rores.
To this devoted earth it marches on,
And midnight blazes with the glare of noon;
Big, and more big, it arches all the air,
A vault of fluid Brass the skies appear:
From their foundations, where they ancient stood,
Down rush the mountains in a flaming flood;
The min'rals pour their melted bowels out,
The rocks run down, the flying rivers spout;
The earth disolves thro' its disjointed frame,
Its clouds all lighten, and its
Aetna's flame;
The sea exhales, and in long volumes hurl'd,
Follows the wand'ring globe from world to world;
Now at the sun it glows, now steers its flight
Thro' the cold desarts of eternal night,
Warns every creature thro' its trackless road,
The fate of sinners, and the wrath of GOD.