The Political Forum

DOVER BEACH
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

As I said four weeks ago in the introduction toYeats' poem "When You Are Old," I am a sucker for a good love poem. And this is one of the best. As well it should be, since Arnold is said to have written it in on his honeymoon in 1851.

When I started this poem-a-week thing, I had intended to avoid the so-called classics; poems that appear in anthologies with titles like, "Everyone's Favorite Poems." But that is difficult to do with Matthew Arnold. He is, after all, one of most widely read of the old Victorian poets, so any one of his many great poems could show up in an anthology of classics. And anyway, this is a terrific poem; one of my favorites; and it deserves to be here.

There isn't much to say about Arnold himself. He went to college, got a job, married, had children, began writing poetry at a early age, and was so successful at it that he became Professor of Poetry at Oxford at the age of 36. Oddly enough, he quit writing poetry at that time, and turned to writing prose commentaries on literary, political and religious issues of the day, for which he became exceedingly well known. He also wrote extensively about education, having taken a job as an inspector of schools. With that said, here's a great love poem. Enjoy. God willing, we'll visit Arnold's work again in these pages. There are many more wonderful poems by him to read and enjoy.

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.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd 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 Aegaean, 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 furl'd.
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.

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