This poem is one of those long, descriptive poems. The poem is sometimes rhyming and most of the time the stanzas go a,a,b,a. The poem is fairly regular and long. In each paragraph there is rhyming and as you already know the rhyming scheme is a,a,b,a. The language of the poem is quite old fashioned. By that I mean he uses words like “gaily or gay” meaning happily or beautifully. Now-a-days we would not really use those words. He probably has one or two made-up words as poets usually does make-up a few. But I could not find any. He uses alliteration in the poem. Here is an example “bleared and black and blind.” This describes that the jewels now have no sparkle or shine. Thomas Hardy’s poem is extremely descriptive. By that I mean he uses a lot of detail apart from the last paragraph. Here are some extracts
“Alien they seemed to be:
No mortal eye could see.”
“Of her salamandrine fires.”
“The sea-worm crawls- grotesque, slimed an dumb.”
“The intimate welding of their later history"
The poem takes us back into time of the disaster of the ‘Titanic’. He explains the poem carefully and slowly. The surface meaning, he first describes the ship going on her voyage, and then slowly adding in small, horrible things. After that he tells us that the ship is awaiting fait. Here is an extractof what I mean “The immanent will that stirs and urges everything.” and afterwards the last paragraph tells us the disaster. The deeper meaning is the detail of the poem. In the last paragraph he does not give us much detail on the actual disaster. He does not give us an account of what happened on the ship or if anybody died, although we know that already. Therefore I think it was too short and not descriptive enough.
I both liked and dis-liked this poem. I liked that he was very descriptive and used good use of vocabulary. Also I liked the idea of him bringing the ice-berg and the ship closer together. Here is an extract “And as the smart ship grew in stauture, grace and hue, In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.” And here is another one about the iceberg and the ship “On being anon twin halves of one august event.” They both tell us that the ship and ice-berg were destined for each other to crash in a horrible event. But I did not like the ending. It was not particularly exciting or descriptive. He could have used more suspense and telling us what happened to the people. I liked that he told us the story in a short, poem way. But if he were to write the full length version then it would be pages long. All in all, it was a good poem but lacked a few things which I have already told you.
