A Night on Dover Beach

On a night where the sea was calm, the tide was full, and the moon lay fair, a little boy could not sleep in a house on Dover Beach. He quietly tiptoed down the stairs not wanting to disturb the slumbering home, crossed the living room, and found his Grandfather awake in a chair looking out the window into the bay. Upon seeing the little boy, the Grandfather invited him over.

“Come to the window my boy; the night-air is sweet.” The little boy obeyed.

“Listen, do you hear the grating roar of the pebbles, which the waves draw back, and fling, at their return, up the high strand, begin and cease, and then again begin?” Inquired the grandfather. The boy thought. He loved the sea, so various, so beautiful, so new, a place of endless opportunity, but what he heard didn’t make sense.

“It sounds…sad grandpa.” The old man gave the little boy a slow, knowing smile; it only lasted a second before he ushered the boy back to bed.

It was moments like these that stayed with the little boy. He returned to Dover Beach often throughout the years, but never on a night with the sea so calm, the tide so full, and the moon so fair.

The years passed by, until one day while in a class lecture this young man could not help longing for those Dover Beach nights. He couldn’t focus; the class was a bore. But, one comment caught his attention.

“…Sophocles long ago hear it on the Aegean. It brought into his mind the rather turbid ebb and blow of human misery. What do we find in this sound?” Posed the professor to the pensive class.

While the young man had no idea what the teacher was talking about, it seemed to relate to that one night with his Grandfather. He supposed Sophocles must have experienced something similar. It seems all men, even great thinkers, had grandfathers to absorb the powers of the sea with.

Time continued as it does and this man discovered his sea of faith was evaporating. He still enjoyed moments of admiring its shores but his view was constantly changing.

To the boy, Dover Beach and its waves had seemed sad only once. But now, to the man, he always only heard the melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, moving with the breath of the night, pulling away from the beaches of the world. It was moments like these that stayed with him. They reminded him of being a boy, of being young, and forced him to ponder his future. For once upon a time he had been a boy. He had been innocent and seen the best in things. Once, the world had seemed to him an endless land of dreams. But now he had experienced more. He had grown up and life changes. Now, he could not see joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.