The Deep-Sea Cables
The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops down from afar–
Down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are.
There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep,
Or the great gray level plains of ooze where the shell-burred cables creep.
Here in the womb of the world— here on the tie-ribs of earth
Words, and the words of men, flicker and flutter and beat–
Warning, sorrow and gain, salutation and mirth–
For a Power troubles the Still that has neither voice nor feet.
They have wakened the timeless Things; they have killed their father Time;
Joining hands in the gloom, a league from the last of the sun.
Hush! Men talk to-day o'er the waste of the ultimate slime,
And a new Word runs between: whispering, "Let us be one!"
A friend recently lent me a CD of the French composer Erik Satie in which the pianist adopts a tempo so languorous that my eyelids immediately began to droop. The music's sense of witty, capricious, spontaneity had vanished, replaced by an impassive stillness. Initially, I disliked this interpretation, but with each note dragged out to inordinate length, I could feel my heartbeat slowing and my breath becoming deep and long. My resistance faltered. The sound held me physically immobile, while my mind became clear and contemplative.
For me, the first stanza of Kipling's poem has a similar quality. That first phrase, "the wrecks dissolve above us," has a slow, cinematic grandeur that helps us see a vista of shipwrecks sinking and drifting at fifty thousand fathoms, crushed by nature's might. The "dust" dropping down is like snow falling through the night, lapsing into oblivion; and out of the blackness loom "blind white sea snakes," weird and hellish creatures that never see the light.
Everything here is a negation of civilization: wreckage, dissolution, darkness, blindness, the absence of any sound. This watery abyss is desert-like in its vastness. The "great gray level plains of ooze" reveal a panorama of life at its most primal. This is the gloop from millennia ago that remains at the heart of the world, and at the core of our being, ready to absorb us once again. Then, deep in our solitary undersea wandering, we suddenly trip over the "shell-burred cables" of human industry.
This ocean world is the womb of the earth, though the "tie-ribs" jutting up remind us of skeletons picked clean of flesh. Yet now words continually "flicker and flutter and beat," passing the trivia of human life to and fro in the tap tap tap of Morse code, as if it were commonplace. We are looking at the cables laid down in the mid-19th century to connect Britain with America, cutting the speed of communication from days to minutes.
This was a revolutionary moment for both countries. When Queen Victoria sent President James Buchanan the first message via the Atlantic cable, he responded with words of fervent idealism: "It is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle. May the Atlantic telegraph, under the blessing of heaven, prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations, and an instrument destined by Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world." The Atlantic cable ushered in the 20th century's innovations in communication, with personal and social transformation not far behind.
The reference to "they" in the third stanza is disorientating, because "they" are of course us. We seem to be speaking from a non-human perspective, gazing up at the surface, knowing that the curious creatures above have finally invaded our peaceful realm. What have the two-legs done? Far from being the powerless victims of the first stanza, they have defeated both Mother Earth and killed "their father Time." Through the umbilical cables of technology, humanity transcends its origins and stands self-parented, bringing itself to a new birth through pure intelligence, like the goddess Athena springing from the brow of Zeus. The shape of the cables is suggested by the long creeping lines of the poem as they snake across the page and into our mind.
The poem ends on a prophetic note, echoing Buchanan's vision. All these voices add up to one Word, a new Gospel message of universal brotherhood, where everyone joins hands in peace. We live with this promise today, with cell phones and the worldwide Web crossing all possible boundaries. Yet there is a paradox. By becoming "one" is humanity free of the undifferentiated squalor of the "ultimate slime"—or simply lapsing back into it?
Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865 –1936) was an English poet and author best known for works like "The Jungle Book" and "Just So Stories."
Christopher Nield is a poet living in London.
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