He's on the coast of England, looking out at the English Channel, which separates England from France. If we put this together with the title "Dover Beach," we get a pretty clear idea of where the speaker is.The speaker tells us that he can see across the strait to the coast of France. That moon that's lingering from the last line? Well, it turns out that it "lies fair / Upon the straits." That just means that the moonlight is shining on a narrow body of water ("the straits").Upon the straits on the French coast the light That fancy little trick is called a caesura, and it divides the line into two parts.
The line takes a pause here, between two complete phrases. We also want to point out that little break in the middle of the line (marked by the comma).That poetic technique, where a sentence is broken up across more than one line, is called enjambment. To find out, you have to continue to the next line. It makes the reader want to know where the moon lies fair, or how. In this line, the end of the line isn't the end of the sentence, so the phrase "the moon lies fair" isn't complete. We've pointed out how the first line was self-contained, a complete thought in itself.It's high ("full") tide, the moon is out, and it's beautiful ("fair"). Here we get a little more description of the setting of this poem.In a word, this line is calm, just like the ocean. There's no activity, just stillness and simplicity. The line ends with a period, making it a complete, simple sentence.In addition to giving us the image that will anchor the poem, this line sets a very particular tone.As you'll see, "Dover Beach" will end up running back in time and all over the world, but that image of the ocean at night will always be front-and-center.Can't you just picture it? Hey, that's all we need to start building a mental world. This first line gives us two simple, basic facts.
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