The
sea is calm to-night.
The
tide is full; the moon lies fair
Upon
the straits; -- on the French coast the light
Gleams
and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering
and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come
to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only,
from the long line of spray
Where
the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen!
you hear the grating roar
Of
pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At
their return, up the high strand,
Begin,
and cease, and then again begin,
With
tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The
eternal note of sadness in.
"Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold
On Wednesday, January 27th, we drove down to the south-east coast of England to visit historic Dover and Canterbury. Dover has played a most important role in British history. Strategically located, it is the closest point to Continental Europe. The White Cliffs of Dover, one of England's most celebrated sights, overlook the English Channel and the town of Dover itself. Words cannot begin to describe the beauty and majesty that the eyes behold. On top of the cliffs stands Dover Castle, once described as the "key to the Kingdom." An intimidating structure built for Henry II in the 1180's, it sits as the gatekeeper to England, keeping a watchful eye on the waters and the outline of the French coast on the horizon. Beneath the castle within the White Cliffs, we walked the secret war-time maze of underground passageways and rooms which served as a command centre and hospital in Britain's 1939-1945 World War II campaign. As we walked through the hospital, a bomb raid was simulated as the lights flickered along with the deafening sound of the bomb meeting the ground. The tunnels, originally built during the Napoleonic Wars as a French invasion loomed, run from 70-150 feet underground. In the command centre, there is a room, around 240 feet long, where Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of over 350,000 French and British troops from imminent German destruction in Dunkirk during World War II, was planned and co-ordinated. Dover's beauty and history, immortalised by Arnold's Dover Beach, shines as a beacon of the excellence of England.
…Then
people long to go on pilgrimages,
And
palmers to take ship for foreign shores,
And
distant shrines, famous in different lands;
And
most especially, from all the shires
Of
England, to Canterbury they come…
The Prologue to "The Canterbury Tales" by Chaucer
And we did come. We went by coach to Canterbury to visit the Canterbury Cathedral. Set in the centre of the town, the Cathedral is home to the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England behind the Queen. We received a personal tour of the Cathedral, the size and majesty of which is unparalleled. In the front of the church, the graves of Henry IV and the Black Prince lie in eternal peace. We saw the very spot where St. Thomas a Becket was murdered by three loyal knights of Henry II. Thomas a Becket's shrine that Chaucer's pilgrims came to worship has since been destroyed, but a candle lights the spot where it stood. In fact, the stone floor before the shrine as been worn away from the thousand upon thousands of pilgrims. Stained-glass windows, adorned with the martyrs and saints of yesterday, line the walls in a rainbow of colours, very beautiful to the eye.