Dover Beach
Matthew Arnold
1822 to 1888
Drag the words to the correct places to complete the poem. To reset the game, click on the "Reset Game" button located below the poem. This will clear all the words you've placed in the blanks, returning them to the word bank and resetting the poem to its original state with empty blanks.
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, ______ moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French ______ the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of ______ stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
______ to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from ______ long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles ______ the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, ______ the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note ______ sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb ______ flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the ______ a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
______ Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, ______ round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a ______ girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, ______ the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! ______ the world, which seems
To lie before us like ______ land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
______ really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, ______ peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here ______ on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of ______ and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.