Dover Beach

[00:05.66] The sea is calm tonight.

[00:08.16] The tide is full, the moon lies fair

[00:11.41] Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

[00:16.17] Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

[00:22.16] Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

[00:27.13] Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

[00:31.16] Only, from the long line of spray

[00:34.91] Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

[00:38.91] Listen! you hear the grating roar

[00:42.66] Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

[00:47.91] At their return, up the high strand,

[00:51.66] Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

[00:56.91] With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

[01:01.14] The eternal note of sadness in.

[01:05.38] Sophocles long ago

[01:07.63] Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought

[01:11.41] Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

[01:14.12] Of human misery; we

[01:16.91] Find also in the sound a thought,

[01:19.91] Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

[01:24.16] The Sea of Faith

[01:26.66] Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

[01:31.91] Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

[01:36.66] But now I only hear

[01:39.91] Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

[01:44.63] Retreating, to the breath

[01:47.13] Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

[01:51.66] And naked shingles of the world.

[01:54.41] Ah, love, let us be true

[01:58.16] To one another! for the world, which seems

[02:01.66] To lie before us like a land of dreams,

[02:04.66] So various, so beautiful, so new,

[02:07.66] Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

[02:12.16] Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

[02:16.92] And we are here as on a darkling plain

[02:21.16] Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

[02:25.66] Where ignorant armies clash by night.