<Dd> Hearing it by this distant northern sea . </Dd> <P> Having examined the soundscape, Arnold turns to the action of the tide itself and sees in its retreat a metaphor for the loss of faith in the modern age, once again expressed in an auditory image ("But now I only hear / Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar"). This fourth stanza begins with an image not of sadness, but of "joyous fulness" similar in beauty to the image with which the poem opens . </P> <Dl> <Dd> <Dl> <Dd> <Dl> <Dd> The Sea of Faith </Dd> <Dd> Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore </Dd> <Dd> Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd . </Dd> <Dd> But now I only hear </Dd> <Dd> Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, </Dd> <Dd> Retreating, to the breath </Dd> <Dd> Of the night - wind, down the vast edges drear </Dd> <Dd> And naked shingles of the world . </Dd> </Dl> </Dd> </Dl> </Dd> </Dl> <Dd> <Dl> <Dd> <Dl> <Dd> The Sea of Faith </Dd> <Dd> Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore </Dd> <Dd> Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd . </Dd> <Dd> But now I only hear </Dd> <Dd> Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, </Dd> <Dd> Retreating, to the breath </Dd> <Dd> Of the night - wind, down the vast edges drear </Dd> <Dd> And naked shingles of the world . </Dd> </Dl> </Dd> </Dl> </Dd>

In dover beach arnold hears the melancholy from the withdrawing roar of the sea of