Saturday night I put this tiny excerpt from Matthew Arnold’s famous “Dover Beach” in a Toronto elevator. I was going to post it to my Twitter feed on Sunday.
But then Sunday happened, and I just couldn’t post anything that had the word “sweet” in it. Although I imagine the air in Orlando was sweet too, before Manteen came to Pulse.
In the past few days, other lines from the poem have been playing in my head, these from the last stanza:
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.
[I’ll reprint the entire text at the bottom of this post, but just to fill in for anyone who didn’t study this poem in high school: the speaker stands at the window, calls his love to join him (Matthew Arnold was on his honeymoon when he wrote this), and stares at the sea far below, the Straits of Dover. He gives an absolutely beautiful picture of a calm sea at night, the waves, the pebbles on the shore, the moonlight. Then his thoughts turn dark. He thinks of all the human tragedy through history, and so we arrive at this final stanza, bleak and mournful.]
In the wake of the Orlando horror, I keep coming back to
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another
and pushing back against
for the world . . .
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain
I couldn’t go on if I thought that were true.
Maybe Matthew Arnold didn’t fully buy into that line of thinking either. Because there he was, at the window, with the beauty of the world before him and the love of his life beside.
If two can love, and be true, why not more?
Is the world that offers this beauty–
the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay
the same world as the one that has no joy, no light and no peace?
In spite of the Manteens of this world, in spite of the haters, the baiters, the lowest-common-demoninators, won’t there always be a window to look out, and someone—if we just call for them—to stand beside us and gaze into the night?
That’s not enough, I know, that’s not enough to cover the loss of all those beautiful young people, the loss of their dreams, their loves, their lives. It’s just a response. It’s just me rooting for love over hate, for hope over despair, for us-and-us over us-and-them.
R.I.P. to the Orlando victims. Comfort to their families.
Dover Beach
by Matthew Arnold
The sea is calm tonight.
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 Ægean, 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.
Amen to all that you say here. Amen.
The ignorant armies are furiously busy. And we must respond.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
There will always be sorrow and love. Look at the aftermath of this tragedy, love coming together, to save lives, to offer comfort, to simply stand and acknowledge that the victims were our family, members of the human family. And so, sadly, was Matteen, but he was only one man, and the world offers so much more than what he could see, than what he did. It offers medical personnel to help save the damaged, it offers people standing in line to give blood, and people who brought them food and water in the heat. It offers prayers, and vigils, and flowers, and stories of remembrance.
If there were not more love in the world than any other emotion, the world would be the hellish place of Arnold’s supposition. But there is . . .
Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
Naomi Shihab Nye
We all know the sorrow of the last days, and the other days of tragedy that have come before. May we find that kindness in ourselves and others, may it raise its head and come to follow us . . . everywhere.
Shihab Nye is always wise. Thanks for sharing that and for your beautiful commentary.
Thank you again for bringing a beautiful poem to my attention.
Tragedy strikes and it stings, but at least we have love out-poured. It’s the only thing that can soothe and, perhaps, bring healing.
Thank you. I always enjoy your posts, and appreciate the care you put into sharing these poems with the world.
Thanks, much appreciated
Also, you may have the best name in the history of the universe. And you live in one of the best places–