MAR

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A praia de Dover


Matthew Arnold



O Mar da Fé
Também existiu, no passado, cheio, e em volta da praia do mundo
Estendia-se como as dobras de uma faixa desdobrada.
Agora, porém, somente lhe escuto
O bramido melancólico, longo, fugidio,
Que se aparta para as lufadas
Do vento noturno, escorrendo por vastas e horrendas costas
E pelos areais desnudos do mundo.”
....................................................
Ah!, amor, sejamos fiéis
Um ao outro.
Pois o mundo, que parece
Estender-se à nossa frente como uma terra de sonhos,
Tão diversas, tão formosas, tão novas,
Na verdade não tem nem alegria, nem amor, nem luz,
Nem certeza, nem paz, nem lenitivo para a dor;
E estamos aqui como numa planície penumbrosa,
Varrida de confusos alarmas de combate e de fuga,
Na qual exércitos ignorantes à noite travam batalha.”
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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.

[1867]