"Dover Beach"
By Matthew Arnold

I thought it was strange that the sound imagery was depressing and melancholy while the sight imagery was happy and invoked beautiful mind-pictures. When talking about what he sees, the speaker uses words like "gleams" and "fair." However, regarding sound, phrases like "tremulous cadence" and "note of sadness." This difference in the diction has something to do with the fact that something can look beautiful but be sad or negative. This idea carries on to the end of the poem where the speaker says that the world looks and seems like a happy place. However, he goes on to say that once a person takes a closer look, the world is a miserable and sad place. The difference between the sight and sound imagery in the first stanza mirrors this characteristic of our world. Additionally, it suggests that the human misery is masked by the beautiful things of the world. It takes listening to hear the truth of things. Out world is a melancholy and miserable place.