Dover Beach

Here's an excerpt from one of my favorite poems: Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold. I first heard it while listening to a book-on-tape version of Fahrenheit 451, which is an excellent book by the way. I don't know if it was especially moving for me because of the delivery of the poem, the context in which it was used or simply because it's well-written, but here it is, enjoy.

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 be 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.

Here's the poem in its entirety: http://poetry.eserver.org/dover_beach.html