Dover Beach - Imagery

"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" - Matthew Arnold

The questions in the booked helped me tremendously with this poem. The imagery clearly suggests the speaker is near a beach right around dusk. I can picture the tide rolling in and out and the mist flowing through the air. The aspect of faith that enters the poem around line 21 dominates the last 2 stanzas. The speaker is referencing the problems in the world and how faith seems to not be as important. It was once a top priority, but now it's just faded into the distance. The speaker has no remedy for the world's problems. Nothing could possibly solve everything that's gone wrong. The poem began with such a calm tone, but it soon became somewhat depressing and dark. The mention of "the eternal note of sadness" really just puts a damper on the beautiful beach images that were entering my mind.