The 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 far 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.