Sunk

I've not been terribly impressed with what the History Channel, one of the more recent additions to what's available on cable here, has to offer, but I did enjoy a programme tonight about the sinking of Cunard's Lusitania. There was a sense of real objectivity involved and you got some understanding of why the Germans felt compelled to do something stupid enough to push the United States even closer to joining the war in Europe. Over a thousand souls went down with the great liner and, I suppose, one might almost attempt some analogy, but not one that really works, with the events of 11 September 2001.

The great ship has now been lost in history as well as the devouring ocean. I don't think anyone will ever consider doing a Titanic on it, though I think it's a better story in its way. Certainly a more troubling one. When I was a kid it already seemed several lifetimes away and now it's forever.

If anything survives of all it meant I suppose it might be Charles Ives's wonderful tone poem (I suppose that's what it is) From Hanover Square North, at the End of a Tragic Day, the Voice of the People Again Arose. It gets my vote as the most moving music written in the twentieth century.

The comfort in all this is that we too will be washed away one day and become as distant as Lusitania. If we're lucky we'll get our Ives.