English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy wrote “Convergence of the Twain” on April 24, 1914, shortly after the sinking of the RMS Titanic, the largest ocean liner at the time. The ship, outfitted with the latest technology and interior design, was deemed unsinkable. However, during its maiden voyage, the Titanic famously hit an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean near midnight on April 14, 1914. With too many passengers to fit into its too few lifeboats, the Titanic’s casualties were vast: 1,517 of the 2,224 passengers aboard lost their lives. Most of the victims were second- and third-class passengers.

The poem was composed well into Hardy’s career, after he had stopped writing novels and turned to poetry. Hardy initially read it at an event called “Dramatic and Operatic Matinee in Aid of the ‘Titanic’ Disaster Fund“ at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden on May 14, 1912. As reprinted in the program of the event, the poem did not contain Stanza 5. That June, the additional stanza did appear with the poem’s first official publication in The Fortnightly Review. The poem’s elegiac tone remains true to Hardy’s interest in the arbitrary nature of fate, unfair class systems, depression, and disaster—all of which are recurring themes in his work.

Content Warning: This guide includes references to sexual assault and rape.

Poet Biography

Born on June 2, 1840, in Dorset, England, Thomas Hardy was the eldest son of stonemason Thomas Hardy Sr. and his wife Jemima Hand Hardy. Hardy grew up close to his younger siblings: Mary (b. 1841), Henry (b. 1851), and Kate (b. 1856). Encouraged to read literature by his mother, Hardy did well in academic pursuits. However, his family’s finances ended his formal education at 16.

In 1862, an apprenticeship with an architect allowed Hardy to move to London and enroll at King’s College. After winning prizes for his work, Hardy was hired by architect Arthur Blomfield and specialized in church renovation. During that time, Hardy became engaged to housemaid Eliza Bright Nicholls, but broke the engagement off in 1867. Hardy then returned to Dorset because he did not like the class stratification he found in London.

When Hardy wrote his first novel, it failed to find a publisher. However, he continued writing; his next two efforts were Desperate Remedies (1871), and Under the Greenwood Tree (1872). Around this time, Hardy met Emma Lavinia Gifford, who inspired his 1873 novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes. In 1874, two significant events occurred. He and Emma married, and Far From the Madding Crowd was published. The popular success of this novel allowed Hardy to leave architecture and devote himself to writing full-time. The Return of the Native appeared in 1878.

In 1885, Hardy designed a house called Max Gate for himself and Emma. There, in the late 1880s, he produced what critics now consider his three greatest novels: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). Now part of the English canon, these were controversial at the time due to their forthright treatment of sexuality and marriage. Emma and Hardy grew increasingly estranged due to the subject of his novels, their infertility, and her increasingly erratic behavior.

Hardy’s last published novel was The Well-Beloved (1897). The critical reception of his last novels was so harsh, that he ceased to write fiction, turning instead to drama and poetry. He published his first poetry collection, Wessex Poems, in 1898. In 1901, Hardy followed up with Poems of the Past and the Present. In 1908, Hardy hired a young secretary, Florence Emily Dugdale, and the two became emotionally involved with each other.

Upon Emma’s death in 1912, Hardy married Florence. Hardy’s collections of poetry during this period included Satires of Circumstance (1914)—in which “The Convergence of the Twain” appears—as well as Moments of Vision (1917) and the Collected Poems (1919) This was followed by Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses (1922), Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925) and Winter Words for Various Moods and Metres (1928).

On January 11, 1928, Hardy died of illness at Max Gate. After his heart was removed and buried near loved ones, his ashes were interred in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner. Hardy was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature 25 times, but never won the award.

Poem text

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.

Hardy, Thomas. “The Convergence of the Twain.” 1912. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The title and epigraph—“Lines written on the loss of the ‘Titanic’” —inform the audience that the poem will cover the fatal “convergence” between the ocean liner and the iceberg that happened on April 14, 1912. The speaker then situates the reader’s attention on the ship lying on the ocean floor and comments on the “vanity” (Line 2) of her makers. The fires that stoked the ships engine have gone out; now the ocean’s water threads through the “[s]teel chambers” (Line 4) where the fires used to be, making an eerie music. The ship’s opulent decorations are now covered in slugs and silt, their previous shiny appearance blurred with a film. Fish swim around and wonder why this pompous vessel now resides in their domain. While the Titanic was being built and outfitted with every amenity, a larger force—an “Immanent Will” (Line 18)—was planning the ship’s demise. This power, unbeknownst to the humans fashioning the ship, created an iceberg that would destroy the ship. This could not have been predicted but should not have been unexpected either. While no human could have foreseen that their paths would cross, the “Spinner of the Years” (Line 31), or Fate, has drawn the two together in an “intimate welding” (Line 27). The sinking of the Titanic rattles the world.