THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC
Oh, Titan was her gorgeous armament
And Titan was her sail and crew;
A thing of pride to sweep the surging tide
And laugh to scorn the perilous blue.
Yet let us weep not for her treasured hulk
That sank leagues deep into the sea,
But for the toll of ill-starred voyagers
Who rode her to eternity.
I see the glory of that primal hour
When first her beams did breast the wave,—
Yea, owner, builder, seaman’s eyes did sparkle
As did the sea her huge side lave:—
How zealously the elite madly rushed
To trust their passage in her care,
To boast their presence on the maiden trip
Of that leviathan so rare.
She sailed.—The sky gleamed bright and azure clear,
The waves lashed gently at her side,
The moon that night shone down auspiciously
Upon that ship of gorgeous pride.
Her engines tore in frenzy o’er and o’er,
Her powerful shafts did heave and quake,
As loud and clear her captain’s voice rang out,
“Speed on! Fear not the iceberg’s brake.”
Ahead there floundered in the chilly sea
A huge and bristling wall of ice.
“What shall we do?” her helmsman tremulously cried.
Word came, “Let’s cleave it in a trice,”
Whereat the mighty engines creaked and strained
And madly sped the Titan hulk.
Ne’er moved nor stirred the ocean’s icy berg,
But braced against her speeding bulk.
“Dost thou defy me, master of the sea,
Thou untried artifice of man?
I’ll show thee, then, whose is the stronger hand,
For mine was here e’er thine began.”
Crash! Crash! The waters rushed. The ship’s side heaved.
The ponderous engines ceased to throb,
And there above the darkening drawbridge cried
A thousand souls in fear to God.
From peaceful slumbers wildly they uprose,
From games of whist, from dance and wine.
“Can it be so?” they cried in anguished pride—
“So sinking in the icy brine?”
But ah! alas! the hand of death hung o’er.
Alas for captain, ship and crew!
In headstrong haste they’d left the boats behind
That save men from the watery blue.
“Let there be women saved, and they alone!”
Rose up like steel the chivalrous cry,
While gallant men stood on the slippery deck
And brave resolved themselves to die.
Then solemn strains rose from the engulfing main,
“Nearer my God,” they sang, “to Thee,”
Till all that was left of the Titan’s envied hulk
Was a billowy gurgle in the sea.
Alas for man! Alas for vaunting boast!
Which seeks to conquer the fate of the sea,
Essays to raise proud hulks of iron and steel
And laugh to scorn God’s mastery!
Thus from their watery grave he lifts his voice;
“None tempt my power by craft malign.
Lo! all shall cleave unto the common end,
And none shall stand but I, divine!”