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In the Morning

Chapter 56: THE COMET; NOVEMBER, 1882.
By Willis Boyd Allen
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Poetry

About This Book

A sequence of lyric poems that meditates on dawn, nature, and spiritual feeling, often deploying mountain, forest, and seaside imagery to probe grief, consolation, and renewal. Poems move among quiet pastorals, occasional and domestic verse, devotional hymns, translations, and lighter nonsense pieces, following seasonal rhythms and holiday observances. The voice shifts between elegiac introspection and bright affirmation, favoring sensory detail—birdsong, running water, sunlight—and a consolatory outlook that finds moral and emotional sustenance in simple scenes and ritual moments.

THE COMET; NOVEMBER, 1882.

Wondrous portent, set on high,
Moving through the silent sky,
Clothed in formless majesty,—
Who can read those words of light
On the star-lit wall of night?
“Mene, Tekel,” dost thou write?
Nay, thou bright Star in the East,
O’er no haughty monarch’s feast,
Prophet nor Chaldæan priest,
Doth thy gentle radiance shine;
Nobler resting-place is thine,
’Tis a Baby’s brow divine.
With the waning of the year
From afar thou dost appear,
Telling us that Christ is near.