Analysis of To the Comet of 1843
Charles Harpur 1813 (Windsor) – 1868 (Australia)
Thy purpose, heavenly stranger, who may tell
But Him, who linked thee to the starry whole?
Wherefore, in this our darkness, be it ours
To must upon thee in thy high career,
As of some wandering symphony from amidst
Those highest stellar harmonies that track
Through infinite space and the great rounds of time
The mighty marches of creation.
Behold, how high thou travellest in heaven!
Myriads of wondering human spirits here,
Duly each night with upturned looks seek out
The mystery of thy advent.
In thy last
Bright visitation, even thus thou saw’st
The young, the lovely, and the wise of earth—
A buried generation—crowding out,
With looks upturned, to see thee passing forth
Beyond the signs of time—and then to know,
In all the awful vastness of the heaven,
Thy place no more! And when the flaming steps
Of thy unspeakable speed, which of itself
Blows back the long strands of thy burning hair
Through half the arch of night, shall lead thee forth
Into the dim of the inane, beyond
Our utmost vision; all the eloquent eyes
Now opened wide with welcome and with wonder—
Eyes tender as the turtle’s, or that speak
The fervent soul and the majestic mind;
All these, alas!—all these, ere thou once more
Shalt drive thus fulgently around the sun
Thy chariot of fire, fast closed in dust
And mortal darkness, shall have given for aye
Their lustre to the grave.
But human eyes
As many and beautiful—yea, more sublime
And radiant in their passion, from a more
Enlarged communion with the spirit of truth,—
Shall welcome thee instead, mysterious stranger,
When thou return’st anew.
And thus to think
Consoles us, even while we watch thee pass
Out of our times for ever; yea, although
Some selfish entertainment of a truth
At all times mournful, whisper us the while:
So shall it be indeed, for God abides,
And nature, born of His eternal power,
Must share its dateless energy as well.
Yea, all that flows from the Eternal must,
If from divine necessity alone,
Work with its cause for ever—still, alas!
Though thence derived, how fugitive and swift,
How vague and shadow-like, this life of Man!
Scheme | AXXXBXCDDXEXXBXEFGDXXXFXHIXXJDKXX HCJLIX XMGLXXIAKXMXX |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010010111 1111110101 10110101110 1101101101 111100100101 1101010011 11001001111 010101010 011111010 1110010101 101111111 0100111 011 101010111 0101000111 010010101 111111101 0101110111 01010101010 1111010101 11010011101 1101111101 1101111111 0101100101 10110101001 11011100110 1101010111 0101000101 1101111111 11110101 11001101101 01010111011 110101 1101 11001001101 01000110101 01010101011 110101010010 11101 0111 0111011111 1110111011 110010101 1111010101 1111011101 01011101010 111110011 1111100101 1101010001 1111110101 1101110001 110111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,120 |
Words | 368 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 33, 6, 13 |
Lines Amount | 52 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 552 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 121 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:50 min read
- 128 Views
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"To the Comet of 1843" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/5216/to-the-comet-of-1843>.
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