Dover Beach is a very mood-evoking poem. We are first met with an admiration for the sea and different emotions that draw to the observer. However, as the poem progresses we are gradually introduced to a large metaphor for love and like the sea are able to evoke many moods, and different emotions, whether prosperous or decayed. The poet describes the emotions with extreme passion and perhaps with slight hysteria. We are given a sense of loss by this turmoil, which becomes clearer in the last stanza.
             The title of this poem, “Dover Beach," really sets the scene for the reader almost instantly. The beach, with its white cliffs, helps give the readers a sense of dominance and magnificence. The poet may have done this to set the mood for the opening stanza. For others, it may provoke a thought or memory of the past such as the childhood holidays with your parents. The lines in the poem could be provoking these thoughts so that you can empathize later with what he is experiencing in the poem. The title itself, however, does not give you any emotional insight into the poem. I feel the poet did this as to not alert the reader to what is going to happen further in the poem. The poems opening stanza is, to begin with, very soft and peaceful, “The sea is calm tonight”(Line 1). The words the poet uses are pleasing such as “Gleams, sweet, glimmering” (Line 4, 6,5). The mood for the poem is being set. The reader is filled with visions of peace and a sense of being content “sweet is the night-air!”(Line 6). However, the mood of the poem dramatically changes. The poet begins to use words, which changes the mood and are vastly different from the previous lines, “roar, slow, sadness”(Line 9, 13, 14). This sudden emotional change to me is a symbol of his love or life. Once the poet’s life was calm as the seas in the opening line. The poet’s life has no changed into the turmoil of emotions, which are charged like the sea “the ...