Hardy fully utilizes the Titanic tragedy to pen this poem decrying ostentation, luxury, and vanity. He writes as if displays of wealth and pretentiousness, angering God, led to the sinking of the Titanic. His speaker expresses an aversion to vanity by describing how a "sea-worm crawls - grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent" over luxuries on the ocean floor (Hardy 778). This image also serves to contrast luxurious items with something disgusting in an effort to mock the vanity they embody. Furthermore, at the beginning, middle, and end of the poem, Hardy refers to a divine "Pride of Life", "Immanent Will", and "Spinner of the Years" in relation to the boat and its superficiality (Hardy 778, 779). Specifically, he writes how this deity, God, "prepared a sinister mate . . . A Shape of Ice" for the boat, presumably due to the sinful greed on the boat (Hardy 778). He believes God set the Titanic in motion toward the iceberg so that the passengers would atone for their sins. This portrays God as vindictive and angry, but that portrayal is likely an expression of Hardy's own sentiments toward vanity. Regardless, the poem ends cleverly, lending resolution to the loneliness set out by the phrase, "In a solitude of the sea" at the start of the poem (Hardy 778). Hardy writes that once the ship and iceberg collide, "consummation comes" and ends the solitude experienced earlier (Hardy 778). Ironically however, this consummation leaves the ship in ultimate solitude at the bottom of the ocean.
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