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Dover Beach
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-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 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 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.
- Matthew Arnold
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The sky is clear tonight.
The roof of stars, the Milky Way,
A dazzling splendor. Tall firs fringe the light;
Orion blazes. A night breeze murmurs down
The hill, circles the meadow, ascends again.
Stillness, peace, after a noisy day.
I lie down in the grass. Men
And women with jet black hair, brown
Faces, lived here once. They may
Have walked this meadow; lay down in
the grass
Like me, strung the Northern Crown
To Vega, Rigel to Capella -- though
With their names. Watched the torn clouds pass
Across the moon. So long ago.
Their ghosts are here: I feel
Them. Silent shadows staring at the stars.
The Sinkyone. We watch the diamond wheel
Of heaven turn, they lie
Beside me -- ancient avatars
Of earth, my very soul. They cannot die.
You have to go
Further back, Matthew Arnold, my old friend:
Further back than the age of faith, to find
The measure of our fall.
You saw an end in Europe. We see an end
Also: you'll never know
What happened. Rest in peace. These ghosts are all
We have. You walk the land, they come to mind.
Still the stars; and still
The deep humanity -- it yet survives.
We're human: but we live inhuman lives.
And we don't pretend otherwise; we kill
Ourselves, the land, and know it. But tonight
The stars, the meadow and the ghosts; we dwell
Enough upon our pain. Here all is well.
They smile at me, their eyes gleam, cold and bright.
We drift, like dreams, into the deathless light.
- Harry Woods Pal
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Krishna and Radha
6
I knew no other
Confirmation
But what I found
In meditation.
It gave me strength
To face tomorrow -
But not to triumph
Over sorrow;
Strength to smile,
To persevere-
But not the victory
Over fear.
Islands of quiet
Validation,
In the ocean
Of
determination.
- Harry Woods Pal
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