zodiac5 Jan 2006

The most famous use of "darkling" is the line "we are here as on a darkling plain", in Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach. If darkling really only meant "in the dark", you should be able to substitute "in the dark" for darkling in Arnold's poem...

We are here as on a in the dark plain.

CONCLUSIONS: darkling also means "darkish; in the process of darkening".