by Ted Sherman

Created on: July 13, 2008

A poet has to be very dedicated to his craft to write verse praising the south of England coastline while on his honeymoon. According to historical research, Matthew Arnold wrote "Dover Beach" during a visit to famed chalky-white cliffs in 1851, just after his marriage to Frances Lucy Wightman.

Like any newlywed would do if he were a brilliant and talented poet, Arnold composed the first lines extolling the beauty of the area. You can just imagine him standing at the cottage window, embracing his loving wife. Then, in a moment of creative inspiration, "Excuse me for a moment, darling, while I write down a couple lines of immortal lines of poetry".

"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"

The romantic mood must have worked for the cliffside honeymooners, because they had six children and lived in wedded bliss for 35 years until his death in 1888. Well, after all, we're talking poetry here, and to discuss such mundane things other newly-married folk suffer, such as relatives, expenses, past loves, unpaid bills and the other usual conjugal problems, would be out of place.

However, as the poem proceeds, all is not sweetness and the romantic light of the Dover night. The theme implies that the restless sea can also bring on melancholy. Along with the joys of love, the writer feels the inevitability of the vast ocean's "eternal note of sadness" as it washes upon the "turbid ebb and flow of human misery."

He tells his love that only by holding on to each other can they together face the troubles of the world, where there is "neither joy, nor love, nor light" and with his most potent, and oft-quoted line, "where ignorant armies clash by night".

I remember being in Dover as young American sailor in May 1944, just before our attack troop transport was to participate in the D-Day invasion. Dover beach was piled high with war supplies, and all too soon, "ignorant armies would clash by night" and dawn in Normandy. A popular song then was "The White Cliffs of Dover". England had taken a terrible pounding by German air raids since 1940, and now there was dawning hope. The lyrics told of a yearning for the time when the war would end:

"There'll be love and laughter
And peace ever after
Tomorrow, when the world is free."

Considering the sad and violent state of the world now, and as it was during World War II, Matthew Arnold's words in "Dover Beach" are just as appropriate today.

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