This stanza begins with a realization of the poet: Without religion and without God, what else is there to trust but love? Human beings do not have God to support them, so other human beings must do it for him. With this realization in tow, Arnold delves into what life on Earth would be like if humans couldn't find love and God wasn't real in lines 31-35. The speaker now wallows in the depression that comes from the loss of all forms of life support, especially religion, after the wave of faith has receded from the shore. The writer offers the reader this harsh reality: love comes only from a dream world that presents a facade of beauty, and only "It really has neither joy, nor love, nor light, / Nor certainty, nor peace, nor help for the pain" (Arnold ). Since there is no God for the speaker, life without love is truly “as confusing – and deadly – ​​as a night battle, bristling with friendly fire” (Ingersoll). This sudden decline in the stability and salvation that a religion provides results in mass confusion, much like a combat scene in the middle of the night, with hundreds of soldiers fighting, inevitably killing their own men. The light they lack – like the religion the world has lost – causes sadness, pain and tremendous loss; because there is no Heaven looking forward