Convergence of the Twain

This poem deals with three different time periods. The first five stanzas deal with the way the Titanic looked before it sank, and the way it looked after it sank (present). Stanzas VI-VIII talk about the Titanic and the iceberg being created (past). The last three stanzas address the meeting between these two large objects (future).

The first five stanzas of the poem give a physical description of the Titanic. “Steel chambers” (line 4) and “over the mirrors meant (line 7) to glass the opulent” (line 8) are saying that the ship has doors and glass windows. These stanzas are also describing the way the ship looked before it sank and then the way it looked after it sank. For example, lines 10 and 11 state: “Jewels in joy designed to ravish the

This poem has much irony throughout it. One example of this is “steel chambers, late the pyres of her salamandrine fires, cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres” (lines 4-6). Salamanders could apparently survive fire, and the Titanic is compared to this because it was suppose to be unsinkable. If this were true, the ship should have been able to survive the collision, but it did not. This is ironic because the “hype” behind the ship was that it was unsinkable, and it sank. Another thing that is ironic in this poem is that the ship is said to be smart; obviously it was not to smart or it would not have slammed into the iceberg.

In stanzas III and IV, Hardy describes the ship the way it looked once it was at the bottom of the sea. For example, the “Dim moon-eyed fishes near (line 13) gaze at the gilded gear” (line 14). All the fish at the bottom of the ocean are looking at this foreign object and wondering why it is there. In line 15, the fish ask, “what does this vaingloriousness down here?” He also states that sea-worms crawl through the sunken ship, which gives a vivid picture of the lifeless ship sitting at the bottom of the ocean. He is also trying to emphasize that these sea critters have no idea how grand this ship once was. Hardy states that the sea-worms were “dumb and indifferent” (line 9) to the beauty of the ship.

Stanza VI is where Hardy begins to talk about how the Titanic and the iceberg were destined to encounter one another. “The Immanent Will that stir

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