Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
The Convergence of the Twain
(Lines on the loss of the "Titanic")
I
1 In a solitude of the sea
2 Deep from human vanity,
3And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.
II
4 Steel chambers, late the pyres
5 Of her salamandrine fires,
6Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.
III
7 Over the mirrors meant
8 To glass the opulent
9The sea-worm crawls -- grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.
IV
10 Jewels in joy designed
11 To ravish the sensuous mind
12Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.
V
13 Dim moon-eyed fishes near
14 Gaze at the gilded gear
15And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" ...
VI
16 Well: while was fashioning
17 This creature of cleaving wing,
18The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything
VII
19 Prepared a sinister mate
20 For her -- so gaily great --
21A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.
VIII
22 And as the smart ship grew
23 In stature, grace, and hue,
24In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.
IX
25 Alien they seemed to be;
26 No mortal eye could see
27The intimate welding of their later history,
X
28 Or sign that they were bent
29 By paths coincident
30On being anon twin halves of one august event,
XI
31 Till the Spinner of the Years
32 Said "Now!" And each one hears,
33And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.
Notes
1] The Titanic luxury sea-liner sank after colliding with an iceberg on April 15, 1912, during its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, with a loss of 1500 of some 2200 on board.
6] thrid: thread.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Collected Poems of Thomas Hardy (London: Macmillan and Co., 1932): 288-89. PR 4741 F32 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
1915
Publication date note: Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries with Miscellaneous Pieces (London: Macmillan, 1915): 9-11. PR 4750 S3 1914 Robarts Library
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/2/13
Composition date:
1912
Rhyme: aaa
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