Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

Dover Beach

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the ئgوan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

-Matthew Arnold -

Related Poems

I have loved flowers that fade

I have loved flowers that fade, Within whose magic tents Rich hues have marriage made

Poem 348 (Robin)

I dreaded that first Robin, so, But He is mastered, now, I'm some accustomed to Him grown,

Recessional

God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle-line, Beneath whose awful Hand we hold

For whom the bell tolls

No man is an island, Entire of itself.

Ode on Solitude

I. How happy he, who free from care The rage of courts, and noise of towns; Contented breathes his native air, In his own grounds.

Dover Beach

Related Poems

Leave Your Comment