Dover Beach

Matthew Arnold

1822 to 1888

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Track 1

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Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Sophocles long ago
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
Only, from the long line of spray
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
The Sea of Faith
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
The eternal note of sadness in.
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
Ah, love, let us be true
And naked shingles of the world.
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
At their return, up the high strand,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
To one another! for the world, which seems
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Retreating, to the breath
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Find also in the sound a thought,
The sea is calm tonight.
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
But now I only hear
Of human misery; we
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring