As she sped from dawn to gloaming, a palace upon the sea, <br />Did the waves from her proud bows foaming whisper what port should be? <br />That her maiden voyage was tending to a haven hushed and deep, <br />Where after the shock and the rending she should moor at the wharf of sleep? <br />Oh, her name shall be tale and token to all the ships that sail, <br />How her mighty heart was broken by blow of a crystal flail, <br />How in majesty still peerless her helpless head she bowed <br />And in light and music, fearless, plunged to her purple shroud. <br />Did gleams and dreams half-heeded, while the days so lightly ran, <br />Awaken the glory seeded from God in the soul of man? <br />For touched with a shining chrism, with love's fine grace imbued, <br />Men turned them to heroisim as it were but habitude. <br />O midnight strange and solemn, when the icebergs stood at gaze, <br />Death on one pallid column, to watch our human ways, <br />And saw throned Death defeated by a greater lord than he, <br />Immortal Life who greeted home-comers from the sea.<br /><br />Katharine Lee Bates<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-titanic-4/
