Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 7-9
Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls — grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.
- First we had the steel chambers and now we have opulent mirrors that would've been used to frame all of the luxurious folks that were on the ship. Remember, the Titanic had a mighty pricey ticket cost, excluding the cheap seats, so most of the people on there would appreciate opulence.
- But here those mirrors are just as useless as the steel chambers, since the speaker includes the imagery of sea-worms crawling all over them.
- So not only are they useless, they're also depicted as kind of grotesque here because of those creeping worms. Opulence, therefore, looks a whole lot less opulent at the bottom of the sea.
- Notice how the speaker juxtaposes opulence with the sea-worm crawling all over the mirrors. He's making it clear that there's a big difference between what man sees as valuable and what nature sees as valuable. As it turns out, those sea-worms aren't too interested in opulence.
- All of those adjectives that come after that dash in line 9 are what help to make that difference stand out. Opulence is being covered by something that's "grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent," which makes those mirrors seem even more useless and impractical.
- Finally, we can't ignore the new rhyme we have here that is definitely keeping with that AAA pattern with different rhymes for each stanza.