A Modern Wonder

Campbell’s Block

You may look but look in vain
For stores with such immense pane;
All other shops they do surpass
With their enormous lights of glass.

One night by chance through them we gazed
But we did quickly stand amazed;
Three moons they did beauteous glow,
And gleams so lovely they did throw.

But a still more wond’rous story:
Mid day showed three suns in glory;
At the sight we scarce could gaze,
So full of brilliancy the rays.

We had to curtain off the glory;
If you don’t believe this wond’rous story
Ask Editor of the Tribune
About this tale of sun and moon.

Which did bewilder McIntyre
Gazing on mighty orbs of fire;
Eclipsing the electric light
So brilliant in their glorious might.

Luminaries no more invade,
Excluded now by window shade;
Pray think that this is no intrusion,
This tale of optical illusion.

Where this text comes from

First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/james-mcintyre_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L24.

Cite this poem

James McIntyre (1828?–1906). “A Modern Wonder.” First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/james-mcintyre/a-modern-wonder/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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