Convergence Of The Twain

          I

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

          II

    Steel chambers, late the pyres
    Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

          III

    Over the mirrors meant
    To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls -- grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

          IV

    Jewels in joy designed
    To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

          V

    Dim moon-eyed fishes near
    Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?". . .

          VI

    Well: while was fashioning
    This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

          VII

    Prepared a sinister mate
    For her -- so gaily great --
A Shape of Ice, for the time fat and dissociate.

          VIII

    And as the smart ship grew
    In stature, grace, and hue
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

          IX

    Alien they seemed to be:
    No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history.

          X

    Or sign that they were bent
    By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one August event,

          XI

    Till the Spinner of the Years
    Said "Now!" And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.