This poem is by David Wilson (Ex plater Harland & Wolff), now Australia
and is dedicated to all ex and present workers of Harland & Wolff and their families.
ODE TO THE TITAN
Most of them said that it couldn't be done, but Andrews with a chuckle, replied.
Maybe it couldn't but he wouldn't be one to say so till he tried.
So he started right in, with the trace of a grin on his face, if he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing that couldn't be done & he did it!
In a Belfast yard where men work hard & their minds are bent on ships.
In a yard called Queens & to most that means Titanic on her slips.
Just sitting there all cold & bare, waiting on her time to slide.
She didn't know that she couldn't go, she had to wait for the tide.
The tide did come as it always will, dependable & true.
They pulled the switch & let her go into the sea so blue.
As she began to slide into the risen tide, the throng began to cheer.
They followed her down from Belfast town & everyone held her so dear.
Andrews was there & Wilding too. They stood with their heads held high.
As they watched her go they didn't know, that soon she was going to die.
They fitted her out & gave her a lick of paint, she looked like she could stick the pace.
They didn't know that in the final show she wouldn't even make cape race.
T'was an April day she was making her way across the broad Atlantic.
How were they to know this was the final show & it would be anything but romantic.
She took a blow far down below & never was a blow so dear.
It settled her hash with a mighty gash which ran from 'ere to 'ere.
They checked her out & without a doubt never was a gash so foul.
The sea did pour through the open door all frothy, green & coul.
Andrews was there, Frost too, not holding their heads so high.
They did their sums whilst muttering a prayer with their faces to the sky.
They thought of this & they thought of that & they thought of thon beside.
But they couldn't stem the mighty gush coming through her wounded side.
Andrews said "we're done for, I really think we are".
Then EJ asked "how long have we got?" "not much more than an hour!".
"We've got to keep her up boys! we've got to do our best!
I can't let my Titanic go to Davy Jones's chest!"
But to Davy Jones's chest she went, through the wet, the cold & the gloom.
And there she stays as far as I know, just a rusting watery tomb.
Somebody said that she couldn't be sunk! But the iceberg it knew better.
It hit her hard & it hit her low. A ship killer to the letter.
