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On Halley’s Comet

Our blazing guest, long have you been,

To us, and many more, unseen;

Full seventy years have pass'd away

Since last we saw you, fresh and gay -

Time seems to do you little wrong -

And yet, you sweep the sky along,

A thousand times more glib and fast,

Than railroad speed or sweeping blast -

Not so - the things you left behind -

Not so - the race of human kind,

Vast changes in this world have been,

Since by this world you were last seen:

The child who clapped his hands with joy,

And hailed thee as a shining toy,

Has pass'd long since, that dusky bourn,

From whence no travellers return;

Or shrinking now in feeble age,

Surveys thee, a mighty globe serene,

Wide hurried o'er the welkin sheen ...

Patrick Brontë

 © Wendy Bardsley 2014

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