Explain with reference And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight Where ignorant armies clash by night These lines are from Matthew Arnold s - famous poem Dover Beach published in In this poem the poet talks about the loss of faith in the modern world In these lines Arnold compares the modern world to a darkling plain The word darkling means dark or full of darkness He says that we the people of the modern world are standing on a dark plain where we do not know what is happening around us There is no clear direction no light and no peace People are full of fear doubt and confusion Life is full of confused alarms of struggle and flight This means that people are always fighting running or escaping but they do not know why They are afraid and