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Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold Stanza-wise Explanation

Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold 
Stanza-wise Explanation

Stanza 1
"The sea is......... of sadness in"
 Tonight the sea (at Dover) is calm. The tide is full. The moon shines brightly on the whole strait. The moonlight shines dimly on the French coast and it soon disappears. The cliffs of England stand firmly, bathed in the moonlight. They extend up to the calm strait.
Come to the window. The night atmosphere is very pleasant. A long line of water drops rises up from the sea to touch the land bathed in the moonlight. The poet, then, asks his beloved to listen to the harsh sound of the pebbles as they strike against the shore when the waves advance. When the waves retreat they throw the pebbles on the sandy shore of the sea. The rise and fall of the waves in a set pattern produces a slow, trembling kind of music which brings in a note of melancholy which is everlasting.

Stanza 2
'Sophocles... northern sea'
Long ago Sophocles listened to the sound of the ocean, the IEgean Sea (that lies between Greece and Asia Minor) and he too found the note of sadness in that sound. That sound reminded him of all the wild confusion and distress prevailing in human life (and he gave expression to it in his tragic plays). Like Sophocles, we are also reminded of eternal human misery as we listen to the slow sound of this northern sea water.

Stanza 3
'The Sea of Faith... the world'
Just as the sea is full now, once upon a time the world was full of faith. (The sea here becomes a symbol of faith.) Once this sea had encircled the whole world. Now this sea is fast retreating, leaving behind bare and naked shingles as the wind of the night begins to blow. The harsh reality (symbolised by the naked and dreary pebbles on sea-shore) leaves mankind sad and dejected.

Stanza 4
'Ah, love... clash by night'
Oh, my beloved, let us be loyal to each other, because the world that lies before us, like a land of dreams, beautiful, charming, full of newness and variety, actually has in it nothing. This world has neither joy, nor love, nor light (of knowledge), nor any certainty about anything. It is devoid of peace. It has no remedy for any pain or sorrow. And we all on this earth are like two opposing armies fighting each other in the total darkness of night, overcome by fears, doubts and uncertainties.
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