<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="" class="head">The "Titanic"</h1><h1 align="" class="head">(An Ode of Immortality)</h1><h1 align="" class="head"> i</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">O, RIBBED and riveted with iron and steel,</p><p class="line">Cuirassed and byrnied, breathing smoke and flame.</p><p class="line">Cleaving the billows with her monstrous keel,</p><p class="line">A Titan challenging the gods she came!</p><p class="line">The surf piled lilies round her eager prow,</p><p class="line">The wind made music through her mighty spars.</p><p class="line">Her hot heart thudded, thundered, and her brow</p><p class="line">Had converse with the stars.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">ii</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">What phantoms of what famous ships of old</p><p class="line">Came to convoy</p><p class="line">Her freight of joy,</p><p class="line">Her beauty, and her splendour, o'er the main!</p><p class="line">Here rocked the weather-beaten barques of Troy</p><p class="line">Beside the ghostly galleons of Spain;</p><p class="line">And there the <em>Argo,</em> with her fleece of gold,</p><p class="line">Followed the <em>Mayflower</em> with her pilgrims bold;</p><p class="line">And yonder, with her motley tattered crew,</p><p class="line"><em>Santa Maria</em> o'er the surges flew</p><p class="line">On buoyant wing</p><p class="line">While Viking warriors, with eyes of blue,</p><p class="line">Lay on their oars and wondered at the Thing,--</p><p class="line">At the prodigious panoply of steel,</p><p class="line">The pounding rods, the whirling blades, the invulnerable keel.</p><p class="line">Natheless, old Charon, paddling in his boat,</p><p class="line">Smiled, and the laughter rattled in his throat.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">iii</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Why does Death's laughter jangle in the dark?</p><p class="line">What can he do against so brave a barque?</p><p class="line">Louder than any laughter is her speech:</p><p class="line">Ten thousand miles her utterance can reach:</p><p class="line">And like ten thousand Argus eyes agaze</p><p class="line">Her mast lights glimmer and her portholes blaze.</p><p class="line">So mightily her turbines whirl and whir,</p><p class="line">Great cables she can snap like gossamer,</p><p class="line">And tempests move her, but as breathings stir</p><p class="line">The branches of a forest. Who would seek</p><p class="line">To grapple with the giant strength of her</p><p class="line">Must have for battle-axe a mountain spur,</p><p class="line">Must have a poniard like a mountain peak.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">iv</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Yea, but an icy mountain is unloosed:</p><p class="line">Riding the sea, it cometh to the joust,</p><p class="line">Reckless and ruthless, arrogant and proud,</p><p class="line">Clad in white armour, visored with a cloud.</p><p class="line">No bugles blow, no trumpets blare,</p><p class="line">No oriflammes and pennons flare,</p><p class="line">No heralds at the lists proclaim</p><p class="line">The great grim Arctic giant's name;</p><p class="line">But pitiless, and gaunt, and white,</p><p class="line">It tilts in silence through the night.</p><p class="line">O sea! O wind!</p><p class="line">Can God be blind!</p><p class="line">Crash! we can hear its great spear gride,</p><p class="line">Gashing the vessel's iron side!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Ah! woe is me! A host of men must die,</p><p class="line">A host of men must leave the April sky,</p><p class="line">The lush green meadows, and the budding trees,</p><p class="line">The little children climbing on their knees,</p><p class="line">Glorious hopes, and golden memories.</p><p class="line">And yet to great and good things seemed they born,</p><p class="line">For every morn</p><p class="line">The sun came through the gateways of the East</p><p class="line">To lackey at their feast.</p><p class="line">And they had made the tempests, and the waves,</p><p class="line">And steel and steam,</p><p class="line">And fire and dream,</p><p class="line">Their feudatories, and their slaves.</p><p class="line">Why should they lie now in such lonely graves?</p><p class="line">Why did inexorable Fate ordain</p><p class="line">That heart and brain</p><p class="line">Should perish in this moaning pool of pain,</p><p class="line">This weltering wailing maelstrom, where Despair</p><p class="line">Gripped faith and Courage by the throat and hair.</p><p class="line">O white cold faces, staring at the sky,</p><p class="line">Did Love of God not hear you cry?</p><p class="line">O poor blind faces pillowed on the ooze</p><p class="line">Why did God choose</p><p class="line">That you should tortured die?</p><p class="line">Is the Power of God a Dream? Is the Love of God a Lie?</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">vi</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">We are but puppets of the mighty Powers</p><p class="line">That round the planets, and that light the stars.</p><p class="line">Time maketh dust of palaces and towers,</p><p class="line">Of faces and of flowers;</p><p class="line">Death all our loveliness and beauty mars.</p><p class="line">The great fire-hearted world grows red and wroth,</p><p class="line">And shrivels up a city like a moth;</p><p class="line">It dribbles down its beard in dotard ire.</p><p class="line">And buries half a nation in a mire;</p><p class="line">It twitches with a palsy, and a town</p><p class="line">Is shaken down.</p><p class="line"><em>Now</em> from the Pole</p><p class="line">The glaciers roll</p><p class="line">And bray and grind the mountains into mud;</p><p class="line"><em>Now</em> from the deep,</p><p class="line">Where the oozes creep,</p><p class="line">New mountains bud.</p><p class="line">Change, change, for ever change, death, and decay;</p><p class="line">All lovely things are born only to pass away.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">vii</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And yet the Soul in whom all beings are</p><p class="line">Discerns so deep, foresees so far,</p><p class="line">He plans the meadows of a star</p><p class="line">Æons before the star is made,</p><p class="line">And in the fire</p><p class="line">He moulds to his desire</p><p class="line">The tiny blossom and the tender blade.</p><p class="line">The deeper meaning of these woes</p><p class="line">No mortal knows,</p><p class="line">Yet in one web the universe is spun,</p><p class="line">Out of the Infinite the finite grows,</p><p class="line">Shadow and sun</p><p class="line">Are woven in one,</p><p class="line">And every star is needful for a rose.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">viii</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Behold! the hands of Fate,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Wise and deliberate,</p><p class="line">Most exquisite in art, most prodigal of power,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Shaped to a strange device</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The murderous bit of ice</p><p class="line">Of a million starry flakes, each perfect as a flower,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Hammering flake to flake</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Simply for Beauty's sake.</p><p class="line">And if the berg was made with so much loving care,</p><p class="line">The end was surely good, the purpose surely fair.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">ix</h1><div class="indent"><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And we have glimpsed a good,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">A meaning issuing thence,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Half-seen, half-understood,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Immortal and immense,--</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">For we have seen poor mortals die</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">As only the immortal durst;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And we have heard the deathless cry--</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">"Women and children first!"</p><p class="line">"Women and children first!" The whole world hears;</p><p class="line">The cry reverberates adown the years</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">A trumpet blast, a trumpet call,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">So vibrant that the prison-wall</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">That bars the vision of Humanity</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Sags, totters to its fall,--</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">So brave and fearless that our spirits see</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The Love behind it all.</p><p class="line">Yea, in spite of glutted Death we feel</p><p class="line">That mightier than the Titan's mighty keel,</p><p class="line">Than whirling blade, and flashing piston-rod,</p><p class="line">Is Courage leaning on the Love of God.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">x</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Nor are they dead who lie asleep</p><p class="line">In the ocean's deep.</p><p class="line">Their eyelids small as lily-leaves</p><p class="line">Cannot conceal a single star,</p><p class="line">For all the things the eye perceives</p><p class="line">Behind the eyelid-curtain are.</p><p class="line">No changes of the carnal sight</p><p class="line">Can blind or blight</p><p class="line">The living soul,</p><p class="line">Which is the darkness, and the light,</p><p class="line">And in itself contains the whole--</p><p class="line">Both earth below,</p><p class="line">And stars above,</p><p class="line">And weal, and woe,</p><p class="line">And hate, and love.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">xi</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">What is life but a drop</p><p class="line">In an infinite ocean?</p><p class="line">E'en though the pulses may stop,</p><p class="line">Yet, with unceasing motion,</p><p class="line">From the Eternal Soul</p><p class="line">The mightier currents roll;</p><p class="line">Life is merely a passing phase of a great Immortal whole.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Meadows and trees,</p><p class="line">Rivers and seas,</p><p class="line">Health and disease,</p><p class="line">Good and ill,</p><p class="line">Are divers keys</p><p class="line">In the harmonies</p><p class="line">Of the Master Will,</p><p class="line">And the beating heart</p><p class="line">Plays its part</p><p class="line">And sounds, and is still.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">xii</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">But never can silent death,</p><p class="line">Making their laughter mute,</p><p class="line">Kissing away their breath,</p><p class="line">Blighting blossom and fruit,--</p><p class="line">Never can silent death</p><p class="line">Mar, and destroy, and break,</p><p class="line">Or silence the soul of love, if the soul of love awake.</p><p class="line">Love, and the things of Love--Beauty, and Wisdom, and Peace,</p><p class="line">Never grow dim and dumb, never darken and cease.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Even as Death's crooked hand</p><p class="line">Twitches the chords of fear,</p><p class="line">Our hearts shall understand</p><p class="line">How every pain was planned,</p><p class="line">Our souls shall hear</p><p class="line">How harmonies control</p><p class="line">At once the thunder's roll,</p><p class="line">And the rounding of a tear.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">xiii</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><em>Now</em> is the carnate soul</p><p class="line">Conscious of body and face,</p><p class="line">Conscious of joy or disgrace;</p><p class="line"><em>Then</em> shall its wider senses embrace</p><p class="line">And compass the whole,</p><p class="line">The rest and the riot,</p><p class="line">The song and the quiet,</p><p class="line">The hearing and seeing,</p><p class="line">The infinite being,</p><p class="line">The light and the music of measureless Space!</p></div></body></html> · Great War