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| 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, 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 Agean, 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. |
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