It seems everyday that we are faced in life with some great hardship that makes us question are faith. In a poem entitled " Dover Beach", by Mathew Arnold and another poem entitled "Church Going", by Philip Larkin these two poets deal with the way our faith is lost, though there are big differences between the to two poems of this same topic. These poems differ with the use of imagery for the moods or attitudes toward the subject, they are both different in the way of what time periods they were written in, and finally the way the moods or attitudes portrayed to be alike.In the two poems that are suggesting that we are losing are faith in some way have very different ways of expressing imagery to portray their attitudes or moods towards the issue of losing our faith. In the poem " Dover Beach" the imagery is quite beautiful in the first stanza such as "Upon the straits;-on the French coast the light/Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand (5,6)." Before Arnold brings about the real issue of losing one's faith, he is giving a wonderful vision of exactly where and when this church is. Unlike the imagery that is used in "Church Going" which is very informational and very conversational. Such as "Another church: matting, seats, and stone,/ And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut/For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff(3-5)." These lines are a great example of what kind of imagery is throughout the whole poem basically. They are very informational and even at times very bleak and not specific. Such as the last word of line five "stuff" what is stuff. This word could basically be anything in the context that he put it in. So the images that I get from this poem are very hazy and not profound like the ones I get from "Dover Beach". In "Dover Beach" The poet uses the auditory and visual images to show the illusion and reality of what is actually going on in the world. The poet's last paragraph concludes the poet's last thoughts of meaning and thoughts. It follows as so ":Ah, 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;/ And we are here as on a darkling plain/ Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,/ Where ignorant armies clash at night."(line 29-37) This last stanza of this poem is very moving and a very good illusion to our world today in the present even though this poem was written in 1888. The last stanza of this poem basically is saying that no matter what we do in life that we always have are faith to fall back on, but we have to realize we have faith inside ourselves or are world as we know it will be gone after a while forever. Quite a statement that is possible...
