At the sixteenth - a woman wrapped her coat

Around her maid and placed her in the boat;

Was ordered in but seen to hesitate

At the gunwale, and more conscious of her pride

Than of her danger swiftly took her fate

With open hands, and without show of tears

'Returned unmurmuring to her husband's side;

'We've been together now for forty years,

Whither you go, I go.'

A boy of ten,

Ranking himself within the class of men,

Though given a seat, made up his mind to waive

The privilege of his youth and size, and piled

The inches on his stature as he gave

Place to a Magyar woman and her child.

And men who had in the world's run of trade,

Or in pursuit of the professions, made

Their reputation, looked upon the scene

Merely as drama in a life's routine:

Millet was studying eyes as he would draw them

Upon a canvas; Butt, as though he saw them

In the ranks; Astor, social, debonair,

Waved 'Good-bye' to his bride - 'See you tomorrow,'

And tapped a cigarette on a silver case;

Men came to Guggenheim as he stood there

In evening suit, coming this time to borrow

Nothing but courage from his calm, cool face.

And others unobserved, of unknown name

And race, just stood behind, pressing no claim

Upon priority but rendering proof

Of their oblation, quiet and aloof

Within the maelstrom towards the rails. And some

Wavered a moment with the panic urge,

But rallied to attention on the verge

Of flight as if the rattle of a drum

From quarters faint but unmistakable

Had put the stiffening in the blood to check

The impulse of the feet, leaving the will

No choice between the lifeboats and the deck.

The four collapsibles, their lashings ripped,

Half-dragged, half-lifted by the hooks, were slipped

Over the side. The first two luckily

Had but the forward distance to the sea.

Its canvas edges crumpled up, the third

Began to fill with water and transferred

Its cargo to the twelfth, while number four,

Abaft .and higher, nose-dived and swamped its score.

The wireless cabin - Phillips in his place,

Guessing the knots of the Cunarder's race.

Water was swirling up the slanted floor

Around the chair and sucking at his feet.

Carpathia's call - the last one heard complete -

Expect to reach position half-past four.

The operators turned - Smith at the door

With drawn incredulous face. 'Men you have done

Your duty. I release you. Everyone

Now for himself.' They stayed ten minutes yet,

The power growing fainter with each blue

Crackle of flame. Another stammering jet -

Virginian heard 'a tattering C.Q.'

Again a try for contact but the code's

Last jest had died between the electrodes.

Even yet the spell was on the ship: although

The last lifeboat had vanished, there was no

Besieging of the heavens with a crescendo

Of fears passing through terror into riot -

But on all lips the strange narcotic quiet

Of an unruffled ocean's innuendo.

In spite of her deformity of line,

Emergent like a crag out of the sea,

She had the semblance of stability,

Moment by moment furnishing no sign,

So far as visible, of that decline

Made up of inches crawling into feet.

Then, with the electric circuit still complete,

The miracle of day displacing night

Had worked its fascination to beguile

Direction of the hours and cheat the sight.

Inside the recreation rooms the gold

From Arab lamps shone on the burnished tile.

What hindered the return to shelter while

The ship clothed in that irony of light

Offered her berths and cabins as a fold?

And, was there not the Californian?

Many had seen her smoke just over there,

But two hours past - it seemed a harbour span -

So big, so close, she could be hailed, they said;

She must have heard the signals, seen the flare

Of those white stars and changed at once her course.

There under the Titanic's foremast head,

A lamp from the look-out cage was flashing Morse.

No ship afloat, unless deaf, blind and dumb

To those three sets of signals but would come.

And when the whiz of a rocket bade men turn

Their faces to each other in concern

At shattering facts upon the deck, they found

Their hearts take reassurance with the sound

Of the violins from the gymnasium, where

The bandsmen in their blithe insouciance

Discharged the sudden tension of the air

With the fox-trot's sublime irrelevance.

The fo'c'sle had gone under the creep

Of the water. Though without a wind, a lop

Was forming on the wells now fathoms deep.

The seventy feet - the boat deck's normal drop -

Was down to ten. Rising, falling, and waiting,

Rising again, the swell that edged and curled

Around the second bridge, over the top

Of the air-shafts, backed, resurged and whirled

Into the stokehold through the fiddley grating.

Under the final strain the two wire guys

Of the forward funnel tugged and broke at the eyes:

With buckled plates the stack leaned, fell and smashed

The starboard wing of the flying bridge, went through

The lower, then tilting at the davits crashed

Over, driving a wave aboard that drew

Back to the sea some fifty sailors and

The captain with the last of the bridge command.

Out on the water was the same display

Of fear and self-control as on the deck -

Challenge and hesitation and delay,

The quick return, the will to save, the race

Of snapping oars to put the realm of space

Between the half-filled lifeboats and the wreck.

The swimmers whom the waters did not take

With their instant death-chill struck out for the wake

Of the nearer boats, gained on them, bailed

The steersmen and were saved: the weaker failed

And fagged and sank. A man clutched at the rim

Of a gunwale, and a woman's jewelled fist

Struck at his face: two others seized his wrist,

As he released his hold, and gathering him

Over the side, they staunched the cut from the ring.

And there were many deeds envisaging

Volitions where self-preservation fought

Its red primordial struggle with the 'ought,'

In those high moments when the gambler tossed

Upon the chance and uncomplaining lost.

Aboard the ship, whatever hope of dawn

Gleamed from the Carpathia's riding lights was gone,

For every knot was matched by each degree

Of list. The stern was lifted bodily

When the bow had sunk three hundred feet, and set

Against the horizon stars in silhouette

Were the blade curves of the screws, hump of the rudder.

The downward pull and after buoyancy

Held her a minute poised but for a shudder

That caught her frame as with the upward stroke

Of the sea a boiler or a bulkhead broke.

Climbing the ladders, gripping shroud and stay,

Storm-rail, ringbolt or fairlead, every place

That might befriend the clutch of hand or brace

Of foot, the fourteen hundred made their way

To the heights of the aft decks, crowding the inches

Around the docking bridge and cargo winches.

And now that last salt tonic which had kept

The valour of the heart alive - the bows

Of the immortal seven that had swept

The strings to outplay, outdie their orders, ceased.

Five minutes more, the angle had increased

From eighty on to ninety when the rows

Of deck and port-hole lights went out, flashed back

A brilliant second and again went black.

Another bulkhead crashed, then following

The passage of the engines as they tore

From their foundations, taking everything

Clean through the bows from 'midships with a roar

Which drowned all cries upon the deck and shook

The watchers in the boats, the liner took

Her thousand fathoms journey to her grave.

. . . . .

And out there in the starlight, with no trace

Upon it of its deed but the last wave

From the Titanic fretting at its base,

Silent, composed, ringed by its icy broods,

The grey shape with the palaeolithic face

Was still the master of the longitudes.