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.
