Dover Beach, by Matthew Arnold

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-blanched 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 A gaean, 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 furled.

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.

Story

The poet is speaking to his new wife, while they look at a hotel window in Denver. The poet  describes the sea and the sounds that he can hear. it reminds him of Sophocles and how he compared the sound of the sea to human suffering. He refers to the sound as the 'sea of faith' which is 'ebbing'. I.e. getting less. This refers to religious belief and how it is getting less.  He says religion is not comforting, and all humans have is love.

Tone

There is a range of tone throughout the poem . It varies from sadness and hope to passionate to objective.


Deeper Meaning
This is another wonderful, human response to the natural world. There is much uncertainty and doubt in the world, and it is beautiful but ever changing. There is much misery in the world. Religion is ebbing away.


Structure and Form
The poem is laid out in 5 stanzas and they progress so does his though progress. Each stanza is clearly a different thought theme and has a distinct tone compared to the other stanzas. There sia  rhyme scheme which matches the theme of the poem.