3. Dover Beach
The sea is calm to-night.
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. calm
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, whitened
Listen! you hear the grating roar sounding harsh
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, 10 throw
At their return, up the high strand, shoreline
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring shaking or quivering
The eternal note of sadness in.
straits: a narrow passage of water connecting two seas or other large areas of water.
Gleam: shine glimmer: shine faintly with a wavering light
4. Sophocles long ago 15
Heard it on the Agaean, and it brought The sea between Greece and Turkey.
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow cloudy, muddy, opaque
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. Belt surrounding the waist
But now I only hear furl: fold up
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 25
Retreating, to the breath roar: full, deep prolonged sound
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear dull, depressing
And naked shingles of the world. Gravel on the beach
5. Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems 30
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 dark
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
6. Explanation
The first stanza opens with a happy mood. The
speaker invites his beloved to come to the window
to enjoy with him the calm sea and the sweet air on
a beautiful night.
The speaker, however, cannot resist the sadness
that he feels by the repetitive sound of the waves on
the shore pebbles. The sound reminds the speaker
of the ever-changing fortunes of people.
In the second stanza, the speaker imagines that
the same sound heard by the Greek dramatist
Sophocles made him think of the recurrence of
human suffering.
7. In the third stanza, the speaker compares the
receding waves to the decay of spiritual faith.
Religion that used to be like a sash or belt,
surrounding humanity and protecting it from
doubt and despair, is now removed, leaving
behind a faithless humanity.
In the fourth stanza, the speaker turns to his
beloved, saying that it is in our sincerity and love
that we can find solace in a world full of
deception and uncertainty.
8. FORM
Elegy: Arnold's "Dover Beach" is considered an
elegy lamenting the world's loss of religious
faith, during a time of progress in science and
industry.
Dramatic Monologue: Matthew Arnold's
"Dover Beach" is a dramatic monologue
because the poet is addressing a silent
audience. The effect is of one person directly
addressing another, while the reader listens in.
9. Stanza form: The poem is divided into 4
stanzas.
Free Verse: The poem is written in free verse
with no particular meter or rhyme scheme,
although some of the words do rhyme.
10. THEME
Decline of Religious Faith in the Modern World
In Arnold’s world, religious faith was receding under
the impact of modern materialism, the industrial
revolution, and the new scientific ideas such as the
theory of evolution. Consequently, spiritual values and
religious beliefs were cast in doubt. Arnold laments the
dying of the light of faith, symbolized by the gleaming
light on the French coast. To his ears, the sound of the
waves become the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar"
of the Sea of Faith. The receding waters leave behind a
world bereft of any spiritual values, a world which
offers: "Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain."
