Halley's Comet



Linda Allen



I was nine years old that awful year in nineteen hundred ten

Living in Chicago in a brownstone tenement

At night we'd sit out on the stoop, we'd wonder and we'd pray

Watching for the comet, a million miles away



CHO: It was Halley's comet, blazing through the sky

Like a heavenly angel, taking us to die

Some thought the Lord would save us and others only cried

Me I prayed that comet would pass by



We'd heard the French astronomer, Camille __________

Had said the comet's tail was deadly gas, cyanogen

On May 18 through Halley's tail the earth would surely pass

And every living thing on earth would be killed by the gas (CHO)



My mother stuffed the cracks in all the windows and the doors

We bought up lots of groceries down at the corner store

My aunt she had hysterics, she cried and cried for days

A neighbor tried to hang himself to cheat the deadly rays (CHO)



We were kind of disappointed, nothing happened after all

And we all went back to living, having wars and playing ball

But for a while we all were neighbors on this little planet Earth

When you think you just might lose it all, you learn how much

it's worth (CHO)



Well I have a grandchild now, you know it makes me kind of sad

She worries about the bomb, she has the same nightmares I had

We couldn't do too much to stop the comet way back then

But not to stop this awful bomb would be a mortal sin (CHO)



@astronomy @bomb

filename[ HALCOMET

MC

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