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 Ægean, 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.