C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Comet

Comets importing change of times and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky
And with them scourge the bad revolting stars.

Shakespeare.

Lo! from the dread immensity of space
Returning, with accelerated course,
The rushing comet to the sun descends:
And as he sinks below the shading earth,
With awful train projected o’er the heavens,
The guilty nations tremble.

Thomson.

Stranger of Heaven, I bid thee hail!
Shred from the pall of glory riven
That flashest in celestial gale—
Broad pennon of the King of Heaven
Whate’er portends thy front of fire
And streaming locks so lovely pale;
Or peace to man, or judgments dire
Stranger of Heaven, I bid thee hail.

Hogg.

Hast thou ne’er seen the comet’s flaming light?
Th’ illustrious stranger passing, terror sheds
On gazing nations, from his fiery train
Of length enormous, takes his ample round
Through depths of ether; coasts unnumber’d worlds,
Of more than solar glory; doubles wide
Heaven’s mighty cape; and then re-visits earth,
From the long travel of a thousand years.

Young.

Lone traveller through the fields of air,
What may thy presence here portend?
Art come to greet the planets fair,
As friend greets friend?
Whate’er thy purpose, thou dost teach
Some lessons to the humble soul;
Though far and dim thy pathway reach,
Yet still thy goal
Tends to the fountain of that light
From whence thy golden beams are won;
So should we turn, from earth’s dark night,
To God our sun.

Mrs. Hale.

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