![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/0415_big.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\nOn the night of April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic of the White Star Line hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank, killing 1,517 people, due to not enough lifeboats for all the passengers (and numerous other perfect-storm conditions).<\/p>\n
For me, it is not so much the sinking of the ship that is the horrifying thing to contemplate (although that is definitely awful). It is the aftermath (described so vividly in the title of this post by “Ruth”): 1,500 people thrashing about in freezing ocean, miles and miles from anywhere, with lifeboats full (or half-full) of people bobbing nearby, listening to the sounds of the death throes. <\/p>\n
Thomas Hardy wrote a poem about Titanic called “The Convergence of the Twain”. The title alone brings a chill of dread. <\/p>\n
The Convergence of the Twain<\/b>
\nby Thomas Hardy<\/i><\/p>\n
\nI
\nIn a solitude of the sea
\nDeep from human vanity,
\nAnd the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.<\/p>\n
II
\nSteel chambers, late the pyres
\nOf her salamandrine fires,
\nCold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.<\/p>\n
III
\nOver the mirrors meant
\nTo glass the opulent
\nThe sea-worm crawls-grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.<\/p>\n
IV
\nJewels in joy designed
\nTo ravish the sensuous mind
\nLie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.<\/p>\n
V
\nDim moon-eyed fishes near
\nGaze at the gilded gear
\nAnd query: “What does this vaingloriousness down here?”…<\/p>\n
VI
\nWell: while was fashioning
\nThis creature of cleaving wing,
\nThe Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything<\/p>\n
VII
\nPrepared a sinister mate
\nFor her – so gaily great –
\nA Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.<\/p>\n
VIII
\nAnd as the smart ship grew
\nIn stature, grace, and hue,
\nIn shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.<\/p>\n
IX
\nAlien they seemed to be:
\nNo mortal eye could see
\nThe intimate welding of their later history,<\/p>\n
X
\nOr sign that they were bent
\nby paths coincident
\nOn being anon twin halves of one august event,<\/p>\n
XI
\nTill the Spinner of the Years
\nSaid “Now!” And each one hears,
\nAnd consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/RMS-Titanic.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThe great Irish poet Derek Mahon (wrote a little bit about him here<\/a>) wrote a brilliant poem about J. Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line, who, famously and infamously, survived. Much to his enduring shame. Most employees were manly enough to go down with the ship. Not Ismay. The scandal dogged him the rest of his days. <\/p>\n After the Titanic<\/strong> They said I got away in a boat And The Self-Styled Siren outdoes herself with a post on The Titanic, in three movies<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n
\nby Derek Mahon<\/p>\n
\nAnd humbled me at the inquiry. I tell you
\n I sank as far that night as any
\nHero. As I sat shivering on the dark water
\n I turned to ice to hear my costly
\nLife go thundering down in a pandemonium of
\n Prams, pianos, sideboards, winches,
\nBoilers bursting and shredded ragtime. Now I hide
\n In a lonely house behind the sea
\nWhere the tide leaves broken toys and hatboxes
\n Silently at my door. The showers of
\nApril, flowers of May mean nothing to me, nor the
\n Late light of June, when my gardener
\nDescribes to strangers how the old man stays in bed
\n On seaward mornings after nights of
\nWind, takes his cocaine and will see no one. Then it is
\n I drown again with all those dim
\nLost faces I never understood, my poor soul
\n Screams out in the starlight, heart
\nBreaks loose and rolls down like a stone.
\n Include me in your lamentations.<\/p>\n
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