Dover Beach

The Scene

¹The sea is calm tonight.

²The tide is full, the moon lies fair

³Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

⁴Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

⁵Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

⁶Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

⁷Only, from the long line of spray

⁸Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,

⁹Listen! you hear the grating roar

¹⁰Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

¹¹At their return, up the high strand,

¹²Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

¹³With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

¹⁴The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles

¹⁵Sophocles long ago

¹⁶Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought

¹⁷Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

¹⁸Of human misery; we

¹⁹Find also in the sound a thought,

²⁰Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

²¹The Sea of Faith

²²Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

²³Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.

²⁴But now I only hear

²⁵Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

²⁶Retreating, to the breath

²⁷Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

²⁸And naked shingles of the world.

The Plea

²⁹Ah, love, let us be true

³⁰To one another! for the world, which seems

³¹To lie before us like a land of dreams,

³²So various, so beautiful, so new,

³³Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

³⁴Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

³⁵And we are here as on a darkling plain

³⁶Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

³⁷Where ignorant armies clash by night.