The Convergence of the Twain

              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 far 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.

Thomas Hardy
The Essential Hardy
Selected and with an introduction by Joseph Brodsky.
The Ecco Press

Introduction and selection copyright © 1995 by Joseph Brodsky.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission of The Ecco Press.