Dover Beach

BY MAT T HEW ARNO L D

The sea is calm tonight. Description of the natural

landscape;
Everything is calm; Serene;
The English
channel that separates
Southern
England from Northern
France. (Atlantic ocean) anaphora
The tide is full, the moon lies fair The water reflects the beautiful
moon.
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, The cliffs of England are
enormous and
shining in
the moonlight.
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. The sea is calm. There is
peace.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, The land made pale by the
light
of the moon
Listen! you hear the grating roar The tone changes; The harsh
sound
of the pebbles, which
the waves
draw in and fling can
be heard.
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin, The motion of waves continue to
fling
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring the pebbles in a rhythmic pattern.
The eternal note of sadness in. The poet associates this sound
with
the “eternal note of
sadness” in the
 life of human beings

Sophocles long ago Sophocles was a 5th century

BC
playwright – Greek
tragedies like
Oedipus Rex, Antigone.
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought The poet imagines that Sophocles
must
have heard the same grating
roar which
reminded him of the endless
suffering
of mankind.
Aegean – sea that separates Greece
from Turkey
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Turbid – cloudy, muddy
Ebb and flow – coming and
going
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith metaphor / religion was once a

comfort /
it used to permeate people’s
lives and
protect them from doubt and
despair. Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. Religion encircled the world like a
bright girdle (simile)

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, The sea of faith has retreated and
left
behind hopelessness
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world. Pebbles associated with
sadness

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams, Simile
So various, so beautiful, so new, The perception which is not
true
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; certitude – certainty, freedom
from doubt
And we are here as on a darkling plain The world is like a battlefield
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Darkling-dark/There is
confusion and
ignorance. We are
soldiers firing
at shadows
Where ignorant armies clash by night.