The first stanza exhorts the reader to listen to "the grating.../ of pebbles which the waves draw back," which "bring/ the eternal note of sadness in."
The first stanza exhorts the reader to listen to "the grating.../ of pebbles which the waves draw back," which "bring/ the eternal note of sadness in." In the next stanza, the speaker says that he hears the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" (*) of the "sea of faith," and mentions that "Sophocles long ago/ heard it on the Aegean". In the third and final stanza, the speaker compares the world to a "darkling plain/ Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight/ Where ignorant armies clash by night." Named for a location on the coast of England, FTP, name this poem by Matthew Arnold.
The first stanza exhorts the reader to listen to "the grating.../ of pebbles which the waves draw back," which "bring/ the eternal note of sadness in."
{"Dover Beach}"