Favourites: “So some tempestuous morn in early June” from “Thyrsis”; “The Forsaken Merman” (“a ceiling of amber, a pavement of pearl”) and “Dover Beach”. Although I am a Christian, I have always found “Dover Beach” a deeply moving poem. Its main theme is the loss of faith in the nineteenth century, but the last lines are haunting: “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 by night”. It certainly feels like that much of the time....