Samuel Barber set "Dover Beach" to music in 1936 in an arrangement for baritone and string quartet. You might like this. Thomas Hampson (baritone) and the Emerson Quartet.
I’m flattened. Almost literally. How different their interpretation than mine!
I learned to love Arnold from two young men who were courting me with poetry and flowers and candy every day. I was 16. I’d come out the door in the morning and find poems on the doorstep from people who’d traveled hours on buses to put them there. “Ah, love, let us be true to one another” is very different when spoken with softness and gentle eyes. That song made suicide seem like a perfectly rational option.
But thank you for letting me see another interpretation.