The Convergence of the Twain

In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches her.

Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents third, 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 senuous 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?’

Thomas Hardy, ‘The Convergence of the Twain’ (1912), first five stanzas.

The poem was written in response to the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912.

The Teare Sent to her from Stanes

Glide, gentle streams, and beare
Along with you my teare
To that coy Girle;
Who smiles, yet slayes
Me with delayes;
And strings my tears as Pearle.

See! see, she’s yonder set,
Making a Carkanet
Of maiden-flowers!
There, there present
This Orient
And Pendant Pearle of ours.

Then say, I’ve sent her one more
Jem to enrich her store;
And that is all
Which I can send,
Or vainly spend,
For tears no more will fall …

Robert Herrick, ‘The Teare Sent to her from Stanes’ (1648), first three stanzas.

First published in Herrick’s volume Hesperides. ‘Stanes’ is the town of Staines.

Song from the Ship

To sea! To sea! the calm is o’er;
The wanton water leaps in sport,
And rattles down the pebbly shore;
The dolphin wheels, the sea-cows snort,
And unseen Mermaids’ pearly song
Comes bubbling up the weeds among.
Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar:
To sea! To sea! the calm is o’er.

Thomas Lovell Beddoes, ‘Song from the Ship’ (1850), first stanza.

The lyric comes from Beddoes’ blank verse drama Death’s Jest Book, or the Fool’s Tragedy. This was published posthumously in 1850 (Beddoes committed suicide in 1848), but had been written and reworked since 1825.

Amongst those who go to sea …

Amongst those who go to sea there are the navigators who discover two worlds, adding continents to the earth and stars to the heavens: they are the masters, the great, the eternally splendid. Then there are those who spit terror from their gun-ports, who pillage, who grow rich and fat. Others go off in search of gold and silk under foreign skies. Still others catch salmon for the gourmet or cod for the poor. I am the obscure and patient pearl-fisherman who dives into the deepest waters and comes up with empty hands and a blue face. Some fatal attraction draws me down into the abysses of thought, down into those innermost recesses which never cease to fascinate the strong. I shall spend my life gazing at the ocean of art, where others voyage or fight; and from time to time I’ll entertain myself by diving for those green and yellow shells that nobody will want. So I shall keep them for myself and cover the walls of my hut with them.

Letter by Gustave Flaubert, quoted in Julian Barnes, Flaubert’s Parrot (1984).

Also given in The Letters of Gustave Flaubert, 1830-1857, trans. Francis Steegmuller (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), p. 83.