The turbid ebb and flow of human misery
Jun. 21st, 2004 07:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarielFrom ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
applegnat
Dover Beach
by Matthew Arnold
The sea is calm to-night.
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-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 Aegean, 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.
applegnat| Which poem are you? Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold You're probably strongly political, and a pacifist. Hey, and you're also slightly depressing. You think a lot of things suck and are pointless. Congratulations!
|
| Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests. |
Dover Beach
by Matthew Arnold
The sea is calm to-night.
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-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 Aegean, 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.
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 01:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 04:53 am (UTC)Really, if you think about it, it's bloody weird to want to be a poem by T S Eliot. I know because my first reaction to someone who did get Prufrock on this quiz was 'OMG I m jelusszzzss!!1!!eleven!'. And then I just went all quiet and um, yeah.
I don't think I'd mind being Little Gidding V, though. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 05:24 am (UTC)Oh, I don't know!
I don't think I'd mind being Little Gidding V, though. :)
:-D So long as I can be II or IV.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 06:16 am (UTC)Must go brush up on IV, I have no memory of it.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 06:34 am (UTC)Consumed by either fire or fire.
A handy online version of all 4 quartets.
A very good friend of mine got me a first edition of Little Gidding as a gift. The paper is wartime rationed paper. Wonderful thing.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 06:36 am (UTC)wartime rationed paper
That is utterly and oddly romantic. Breathing in the air of the old days.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 07:22 am (UTC)Ooh, I have to go and have a fondle of it now.