A cluster of them makes not half a Moon,
What should such tennis-balls do in the skie?
And few ’ll not figure out the fashion
Of those round firie meteors on high.
Ne ought their beards much move us, that do lie
Ever cast forward from the Morning sunne,
Nor back cast tayls turn’d to our Evening-eye,
That fair appear when as the day is done.
This matter may lie hid in the starres shadowed Cone.
89
For in these Planets conflagration,
Although the smoke mount up exactly round,
Yet by the suns irradiation
Made thin and subtil no where else its found
By sight, save in the dim and duskish bound
Of the projected Pyramid opake,
Opake with darknesse, smoke and mists unsound.
Yet gilded like a foggie cloud doth make
Reflection of fair light that doth our senses take.
90
This is the reason of that constant site
Of Comets tayls and beards: And that their show’s
Not pure Pyramidall, nor their ends seem streight
But bow’d like brooms, is from the winds that blow,
I mean Ethereall winds, such as below
Men finden under th’ Equinoctiall line.
Their widend beards this aire so broad doth strow
Incurvate, and or more or lesse decline:
If not, let sharper wits more subtly here divine.
91
But that experiment of the Optick glasse
The greatest argument of all I deem,
Ne can I well encounter nor let passe
So strong a reason if I may esteem
The feat withouten fallacie to been,
Nor judge these little sparks and subtile lights
Some auncient fixed starres though now first seen,
That near the ruin’d Comets place were pight,
On which that Optic instrument by chance did light.
92
Nor finally an uncouth after-sport
Of th’ immense vapours that the searching fire
Had boyled out, which now themselves consort
In severall parts and closely do conspire,
Clumper’d in balls of clouds and globes entire
Of crudled smoke and heavy clunging mists;
Which when they’ve staid awhile at last expire;
But while they stay any may see that lists
So be that Optick Art his naturall sight assists.
93
If none of these wayes I may well decline
The urging weight of this hard argument,
Worst is but parting stakes and thus define:
Some Comets be but single Planets brent,
Others a synod joyn’d in due consent:
And that no new found Meteors they are:
Ne further may my wary mind assent
From one single experience solitaire,
Till all-discovering Time shall further truth declare.
94