“And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.”

—  Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach

St. 4
Dover Beach (1867)
Context: Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
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.

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Matthew Arnold photo
Matthew Arnold166
English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector… 1822–1888

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