■'PR 6025 . M 1 644; <> THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES "^M§^ I JHE TITANIC (AN ODE OF IMMORTALITY) BY RONAT r> CAMPBELL MACFIE ':: LONDON ERSKINE MACDONATD i7SURR|:V*S , MCMXli / ■ i ^ THE TITANIC (Copyright in the United States of America.) THE TITANIC (AN ODE OF IMMORTALITY) BY RONALD CAMPBELL MACFIE LONDON ERSKINE MACDONALD 17 SURREY ST W.C. MCMXII puSMSHEl^ IS 12. To my Friends R. S. and R. M. THE "TITANIC." (an ode of immortality). I O, ribbed and riveted with iron and steel, Cuirassed and byrnied, breathing smoke and flame, Cleaving the billows with her monstrous keel, A Titan challenging the gods she came ! I'he surf piled lilies round her eager prow, The wind made music through her mighty spars, Her hot heart thudded, thundered, and her brow Had converse with the stars. 9±P' II The phantoms of the famous ships of old Came to convoy Her freight of joy, Her beauty and her splendour o'er the main. One could behold The barques of Troy Beside the ghostly galleons of Spain. The " Argo " with her phantom fleece of gold, The " Mayflower " with her pilgrims stern and bold, " Santa Maria " with her motley crew Fluttered and flew On buoyant wing. While Viking warriors with eyes of blue Lay on their oars and wondered at The Thing — At the prodigious panoply of steel, The pounding rods, the whirling blades, the invulnerable keel. • ••• •••■ Natheless, old Charon paddling in his boat Smiled, and the laughter rattled in his throat. Ill Why does Death's laughter jangle in the dark? What can he do against so brave a barque? Louder than any laughter is her speech : Ten thousand miles her utterance can reach; And like ten thousand Argus eyes agaze Her mast lights glimmer and her portholes blaze. So mightily her turbines whirl and whir: Great cables she can snap like gossamer, And tempests move her, but as whispers stir The branches of a forest. Who would seek To grapple with the giant strength of her Must have for battle-axe a mountain spur, Must have a poniard like a mountain peak. II IV Yea, but an icy mountain is unloosed: Riding the sea, it cometh to the joust. Reckless and ruthless, arrogant and proud. Clad in white armour, visored with a cloud. No bugles blow, no trumpets blare. No oriflammes and pennons flare, No heralds at the lists proclaim The great grim Arctic giant's name ; But pitiless, and tall, and white It tilts in silence through the night : Osea! O wind! Can God be blind ! Crash ! we can hear its great spear gride Gashing the vessel's iron side ! It rends, it rips ! Ah ! woe is me ! The good ship fills, and leans, and dips. The brave ship founders in the sea ! 13 Ah ! woe is me ! A host of men must die, A host of men must leave the April sky, The lush green meadows, and the budding trees, Their little children climbing on their knees, Their rosy hopes, and golden memories. And yet to great and good things seemed they born, For^every morn The sun came through the gateways of the East To lackev at their feast. And they had made the tempests, and the waves. And steel and steam. And fire and dream. Their feudatories, and their slaves. Why should they lie now in such lonely graves ? Why did inexorable Fate ordain That heart and brain Should perish in this moaning pool of pain. This weltering wailing maelstrom, where Despair Gripped Faith and Courage by the throat and hair. O white cold faces staring at the sky Did Love of God not hear you cry? O poor blind faces pillowed on the ooze, Why did God choose That you should tortured die? Is the Power of God a Dream? Is the Love of God a Lie? 15 VI We are but puppets of the mighty Powers That round the planets, and that Hght the stars. Time maketh dust of palaces and towers, Of faces and of flowers ; Death all our loveliness and beauty mars. - J The great fire-hearted world becomes wroth, *^ / It shrivels up a city like a moth ; It dribbles down its beard in dotard ire, And buries half a nation in a mire ; It twitches with a palsy, and a town Is shaken down. }^o-iv from the Pole The glaciers roll And bray and grind the mountains into mud ; 'Now from the deep, Where the oozes creep. New mountains bud. Change, change, for ever change, death, and decay; All lovely things are born only to pass away. 17 VII And yet the Soul in whom all beings are Discerns so deep, foresees so far, He plans the meadows of a star Aeons before the star is made, And in the lire He moulds to his desire The tiny blossom and the tender blade. The deeper meaning of these woes No mortal knows, Yet in one web the universe is spun, Out of the Infinite the finite grows. And shade and sun Are woven in one, And every star is needful for a rose. The Berg of Death was part of the Wise Plan That makes the world a dwelling-place for man And could our Will have turned it back. The Universe had fallen in wrack. 19 VIII Behold ! the hands of Fate Wise and deliberate, Most exquisite in art, most prodigal of power, Shaped to a strange device The murderous bit of ice Of a milhon starry flakes, each perfedl as a flower. Hammering flake to flake That they the berg might make. And if the berg was made with so much loving care. The end was surely good, the purpose surely fair. Whate'er the woe may mean Some beauty was foreseen. 21 IX And we have glimpsed a good, Half-seen, half-understood, A meaning issuing thence, Immortal and immense, — We who have seen poor mortals die As only the immortal durst; We who have heard the deathless cry — "Women and children first ! " ''Women and children first ! " The whole world hears : The cry reverberates adown the years A trumpet blast, a trumpet call, So vibrant that the prison-wall That bars the vision of Humanity Totters unto its fall, — So brave and fearless that our spirits see The Love behind it all. Yea, in despite of glutted Death we feel That mightier than the Titan's mighty keel. Than whirling blade, and flashing piston- rod. The Courage leaning on the Love of God. 23 X Nor are they dead who lie asleep In the ocean's deep. Their eyelids small as lily-leaves Cannot conceal a single star For all the things the eye perceives Behind the eyelid-curtain are. No changes of the carnal sight Can blind or blight The living soul, Which is the darkness, and the light, And in itself contains the whole — Both earth below. And stars above. And weal, and woe, And hate, and love. 25 XI What is life but a drop In an infinite ocean? E'en though the pulses may stop, Yet, with unceasing motion, From the Eternal Soul The mightier currents roll; Life is merely a passing phase of a great Immortal whole. Meadows and trees, Rivers and seas, Health and disease, Good and ill, Are divers keys In the harmonies Of the Master Will, And the beating heart Plays its part And sounds, and is still. 27 XII But never can silent death, Making their laughter mute, Kissing away their breath, Blighting blossom and fruit, — Never can silent death Mar, and destroy, and break, Or silence the soul of love, if the soul of love awake. Love, and the things of Love — Beauty, and Wisdom, and Peace, Never grow dim and dumb, never darken and cease. Even as Death's crooked hand Twitches the chords of fear. Our hearts shall understand How every pain was planned, Our souls shall hear How harmonies control At once the thunder's roll, And the rounding of a tear. 29 XIII Now is the carnate soul Conscious of body and face, Conscious of joy or disgrace, Then shall its wider senses embrace The rest and the riot, The song and the quiet. The hearing and seeing. The infinite being, The light and the music of measureless Space! 31 ^ An Ode written for the Opening of the New Buildings of Marischal College, on the occasion of the Quatercentenary of the University of Aberdeen, by Dr Ronald Campbell Macfie, author of "Granite Dust," "New Poems," "Science, Matter and Im- mortality," 1^50., i/- net. ^ The Dreaming Antinous and other poems, by Miss K. Everest, 2/6 net. Songs in Wiltshire, by Alfred Williams, 5/- net. Poems in Wiltshire, by Alfred Williams, 3/6 net. Poems and Ballads, by A. G. Hales, 5/- net. ^ Writers of distinctive verse, belle-Iettres, and fiftion are invited to submit MSS. Historical, family and local records compiled, edited, printed and published. Erskine MacDonald, 17 Surrey St., London, W.C. / University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hiigard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 4 whf 986 WW 02191 I . f22l< 1989 form ] Ill 3 1158 00756 6663 w.