Dover Beach | The sea is calm to-night

The sea is calm to‑night

Language: English

Our translations: GER LIT

The sea is calm to-night, 
The tide is full, the moon lies fair 
Upon the straights; -- 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 Ægean, 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.

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

by Matthew Arnold (1822 - 1888), "Dover Beach", appears in New Poems, first published 1867 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Samuel Barber (1910 - 1981), "Dover Beach", op. 3, published 1936 [ medium voice, string quartet ] [sung text checked 1 time]
by Alan Bullard (b. 1947), "The Sea of Faith", 1995, first performed 1995 [ high voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
by Edward Toner Cone (b. 1917), "Dover Beach", 1941 [ baritone, piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Robin Field (b. 1935), "Dover Beach", 1971 [ alto and violoncello ], from Hearth-Songs [sung text not yet checked]
by Bernard H. Gilmore (b. 1937), "Dover Beach", 1971 [ soprano, clarinet, violin, viola, violoncello ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Arthur Murray Goodhart (1866 - 1941), "Dover Beach", published 1911 [ voice, piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Alva Henderson (b. 1940), "Dover Beach", first performed 1968 [sung text not yet checked]
by Jack Marius Jarrett (b. 1934), "Dover Beach", 1957 [ baritone, orchestra ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Maurice Johnstone (1900 - 1976), "Dover Beach", published 1947 [ voice, piano or orchestra ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Martin Kalmanoff (1920 - 2007), "Dover Beach", 1942 [ voice, piano or string quartet ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Joseph Kaufer (1909 - 1990), "Dover Beach", published 1951 [ voice and piano ], from Dover Beach and Other Songs, no. 2, Waukegan, Illinois: Lyric-Art [sung text checked 1 time]
by Robert Russell (b. 1933), "Dover Beach", 1965 [ voice, piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958), "Dover Beach", <<1899, note: this setting has been lost. [sung text not yet checked]
by Frederick Woltmann (b. 1908), "From Dover Beach", 1938 [sung text not yet checked]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

Researcher for this page: Peter Duyster

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 37
Word count: 258