Still, Dover Beach

The ebb and flow of love,

smooth pebbles tossed

against the shore,

leaves unbelievers lost,

rough tumbled in its roar.

Pale specter of the world,

its shadows fall

on darkling plain;

White cliffs will still loom tall

ere crumbling once again.

And melancholy night

in timeless paths

across the sky,

are stilled by lovers' words

though long centuries pass them by.

For rivers of our time

still interweave
with currents past;
Covenants conceived,
collected like sea-glass.

One note hangs in the air:

the channel's cry

at end of day,

voluminous with life

before its sweet decay.

And there still hangs the moon,                                 
on Dover's tide,

its plaintive song;                                               
Eternal notes abide.

Sea of faith still moves as strong.

Old Sophocles could hear

the voice of time

within the spray;

And now the voice is mine,

lest my words be washed away.

The ebb and flow of time,

a love sea- tossed

against the strand,

retreat and then return,

back to the moon-blanched land.