"Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold
The sea is calm tonight,
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,(1) 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-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand, (2)
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.(3)

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, 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.(4)

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath (5)
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,(6)
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; (7)
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.(8)

Foot Notes 1. The author uses personification to bring to life the actions of the night and sea. He also brings England to life as a big giant beautiful place. 2. He is bringing excitement into the story by using exclamation points and also by saying words like ‘’ listen ‘’ and ‘’ return ‘’ makes the reader imagine the things going on in the poem. 3. He compares sadness to a note and also by doing this he gives the story a solemn mood. Also by turning sadness to a note of sadness he makes the whole story seem like a song with many parts and feelings connected to it. 4. The person Sophocles, the author is saying that he heard the Aegean which in the poem seems to be a sea. The author is saying that the sea has caused him to think about the current misery of human beings. And by saying ‘’ finding in the sound a thought ‘’ the author is bringing back up the note of sadness and where he hears the sadness is the distant Northern sea. 5. The sea once before was one filled with faith and life and in this part of the poem the author is telling you what it has become after time had passed. He also is once again referring to the song of the sea and saying that the song it once played was full of life but currently playing a sad tune. 6. When the author says the world is like a land of dreams he is using a simile but also by saying the world is like that it means that anything can happen and nothing is impossible. 7. By saying all the things that arrent there he is basically saying there is nothing else besides you or the night. 8. He is saying the armies don’t know what they are fighting for and the struggles that humanity goes through they don’t even understand why.