"The Sea of Faith

Was once too, at the full, and round

Earth's shore.

Lay like a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

It's melancholy, long, withdrawing roar

retreating, to the breath,

of the night-wind, down the edges drear,

and the 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 neither really joy, nor love, nor light.

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain,

and here we are as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

were ignorant armies clash by night!"

-Mathew Arnold's Dover Beach.