The Comet of 1861

Whence art thou, sudden comet of the sun ?
In what far depths of God thine orient place ?
Whence hath thy world of light such radiance won
To gleam and curve along the cone of space ?

Why comest thou, weird wanderer of the air ?
What is thine oracle for shuddering eyes ?
Wilt thou some myth of crownless kings declare,
Scathed by thy fatal banner of the skies ?

Or dost thou glide, a seething orb of doom,
Bristling with penal fires, and thick with souls —
The severed ghosts that throng thy peopled womb,
Whom Azrael, warder of the dead, controls ?

Throne of some lost archangel, dost thou glare,
After long battle, on that conquering height ?
Vaunt of a victory that is still despair,
A trophied horror on the arch of night ?

But lo ! another dream : thou starry god,
Art thou the mystic seedsman of the sky ?
To shed new worlds along thy radiant road,
That flow in floods of billowy hair on high ?

Roll on ! yet not almighty : in thy wrath
Thou bendest like a vassal to his king ;
Thou darest not o'erstep thy graven path,
Nor yet one wanton smile of brightness fling.

Slave of a Mighty Master ! be thy brow
A parable of night, in radiance poured :
Amid thy haughtiest courses, what art thou ?
A lamp to lead some pathway of the Lord !