15th April 1912 2.20am

The Convergence of the Twain
Thomas Hardy (1912)

(Lines on the loss of the "Titanic")

I
In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,

And the Pride of Life that planned her,

stilly couches she.

II
Steel chambers, late the pyres

Of her salamandrine fires,

Cold currents thrid,

and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III
Over the mirrors meant

To glass the opulent

The sea-worm crawls --

grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

IV
Jewels in joy designed

To ravish the sensuous mind

Lie lightless,

all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

V
Dim moon-eyed fishes near

Gaze at the gilded gear

And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?". . .

VI
Well: while was fashioning

This creature of cleaving wing,

The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

VII
Prepared a sinister mate

For her -- so gaily great --

A Shape of Ice, for the time fat and dissociate.

VIII
And as the smart ship grew

In stature, grace, and hue

In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

IX
Alien they seemed to be:

No mortal eye could see

The intimate welding of their later history.

X
Or sign that they were bent

By paths coincident

On being anon twin halves of one August event,

XI

Till the Spinner of the Years

Said "Now!"

And each one hears,

And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.