Acquainted With the Night
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Acquainted With the Night is a poem by Robert Frost, published in 1928 in his collection West-Running Brook.
[edit] Poem
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
[edit] Explanation and interpretations
A popular explanation of this poem is that it describes loneliness in an urban setting and provides examples of its effects (isolation, sadness, insomnia). The loneliness is underlined by different effects, notably by the stress on the pronoun "I" in the first five lines, by the awkward formulation of the first line whose result is to underline the word "one", and by a description of a cry in the night whose main effect as felt (line 10) by the narrator is to underline his isolation.
The poem is written in the form of a terza rhima, that is, where rhymes follow this complex scheme: aba bcb cdc dad aa (with an ending ryhme in "a" again). Also the beat of the poem is in perfect iambic pentameter: each line has ten beats, evocating a walk in the city.
