Hardy’s speaker tells us the Titanic once burned with “salamandrine fires” (Line 5). This is a reference to the Renaissance alchemist Paracelsus and his idea that certain supernatural beings called elementals relate to four elements then thought to comprise matter: earth, water, fire, and air. Salamanders—a mythological version of the lizards we know—align with fire, representing the tempestuous nature of the spirit which rules will, power, and intensity. An elemental gains power from the environment in which their element predominates but will be extinguished when in contact with an alternate element or left unbalanced. Hence, the Titanic’s fires are extinguished when doused by water and its vanity is checked. Initially published in 1566, Paracelsus’s ideas had a resurgence in the 19th century and inspired several Victorian works of art, poetry, drama, and fiction which would have been familiar to Hardy.

The motif of “dim moon-eyed fishes” (Line 13) observing the wreck of the Titanic on the ocean bottom adds to the poem’s perspective: We, like the deep-sea fish, are observing the failure of progress. Before launch, the Titanic had been touted as the pinnacle of human achievement. Showing it as an eerie “lightless” (Line 12) coffin, “stilly couch[ed]” (Line 3) at the bottom of the sea calls these former boasts hubris.