Lyrics:

(Mary Chapin Carpenter) Late one night when the wind was still Daddy brought the baby to the window sill 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 nineteen ten 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've said 'amen' too As its tail stretched out like a stardust streak The papers wrote about it every day for a week They 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 nineteen eighty-six 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 nineteen ten Late one night when the wind was still