"The convergence of the twain" - Thomas Hardy

The Convergence of the Twain

Subtitled (Lines on the loss of the "Titanic") by Thomas Hardy

             In a solitude of the sea

            Deep from human vanity,

   And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

 

            Steel chambers, late the pyres

            Of her salamandrine fires,

   Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

 

            Over the mirrors meant

            To glass the opulent

   The sea-worm crawls — grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

 

            Jewels in joy designed

            To ravish the sensuous mind

  Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

 

            Dim moon-eyed fishes near

            Gaze at the gilded gear

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

 

            Well: while was fashioning

            This creature of cleaving wing,

   The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

 

            Prepared a sinister mate

            For her — so gaily great —

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

 

            And as the smart ship grew

            In stature, grace, and hue,

   In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

 

            Alien they seemed to be;

            No mortal eye could see

   The intimate welding of their later history,

 

            Or sign that they were bent

            By paths coincident

   On being anon twin halves of one august event,

 

            Till the Spinner of the Years

            Said "Now!" And each one hears,

   And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

 

·         One might call this a shaped poem. In shaped poem, the lines are arranged in such way, either the individual stanzas or the entire poem looks like something. In this poem, most stanzas look like little ships. This poem helps me to rationalize some of the incomprehensibilities of life and come to terms with them.

·         Our world is a cycle of creation and destruction – when something is created the thing that would kill it too is created. That is how nature keeps everything on an even keel. What might to us looks like monstrously irrational destruction is a necessary act for nature – Nature being a-moral or para-moral, its acts cannot be judged using human norms and values. The only thing we can do is to accept the binary nature of our world and live with it. This knowledge would also help us to keep a look out for our greatest folly: hubris or over-weening pride in human capability. Each time I read this poem, in the end, I am left with a dreadful sense of nihilism