(Mary Chapin Carpenter)

Late one night when the wind was still
Daddy brought the baby to the window still
To see a bit of heaven shoot across the sky
The one and only time daddy saw it fly

It came from the east just as bright as a torch
The neighbors had a party on their porch
Daddy rocked the baby mother said amen
When Halley came to visit in 1910

Now back then Jackson was a real small town
And it’s not every night a comet comes around
It was almost eighty years since its last time through
So I bet your mother would have said amen too

As its taile stretched out like a stardust streak
The papers wrote about it every day for a week
You wondered where it’s going and where it’s been
When Halley came to Jackson in 1910

Now daddy told the baby sleeping in his arms
To dream a little dream of a comet’s charms
And he made a little wish as she slept so sound
In 1986 that wish came ‘round

It came from the east just as bright as a torch
She saw it in the sky from her daddy’s porch
As heavenly sent as it was back then
When Halley came to Jackson in 1910

And late one night when the wind was still