Acquainted With The Night By Robert Frost

 

It is a poem of connect! A connect with all those who have experienced the dark, onerous, and dreary moments of life!

 

Frost wrote the poem in terza rima (a verse stanza consisting of three-rhyming-sentences), to link his own depressive journey to hell.

 

The poem is set in the urban environment, exemplifying utter depression in the middle of city!

 

This is allegory can be applied to us all who live in cities of concrete and mortar. We can effortlessly relate to the difficulties and desolation, which come as a package-deal of living is such high-rise cities!

 

I personally gauge, the first line of the poem to be the most powerful line -

“I have been one acquainted with the night”

 

He refers to himself as “one” using the word “acquainted” exhibiting no formal affection or propensity to know but is just simply aware of, and uses a profound word with several implications – “night”. The word “night” divulges the difficult, dark, onerous moments that we all stumble upon in life. I am sure we all have sailed through the inconvenient and strenuous times!

 

The 3 major themes that enshroud the poem are that of loneliness, sadness and longing.

The poet deliberately chooses to be alone, and goes onto even avoiding the only human in the poem (the watchman). Walking all alone through the darkness and into the darkness, he deliberately walks in the rain without expressing his feelings to anyone!

It might sound paradoxical, that being all grim and desolate, wanting to be left alone, he still longs for someone.

One can discern the poet’s longing- when he hears a cry, he ends up feeling more dejected when he realises that the cry is not for him. It illustrates that he wants someone to call out /look out for him!

 

It is a sonnet, very similar sounding like one from Shakespeare.

 

One of the most striking sentences is the one referring to my personal celestial object, the moon, which is –

 

“And further still at an unearthly height,

One luminary clock against the sky”

 

This is definitely not a happy poem. A man feeling desolate and depressed takes a walk during the night. Frost wrote this profound poem, referring to his personal state of mind, and for all those people who themselves sail through the dark, dreary moments of life!

The meter from the beginning till the end is enveloped with dejection and melancholy!

 

The closing line is same as the opening line.

After exploring all the aspects of the night, he claims he is a person who has traversed through, experienced the raucous difficulties of life to the fullest! He doesn’t have any suggestions/advice for the readers, but is just letting us know that he has been out there in the darkness like many of us!

This poem is used as a medium to connect with all those who have been out there in the abject loneliness, he is connecting by stating his own isolation and misery. That’s the power of literature! Literature can connect people and create clans!

 

Robert Frost unites with all those who have been desolate and in misery, in short, he alludes to the clan of depression and driving through difficulty.

I give 3.75 stars to this poem, alluding to the night of arduousness, and delineating (abstractedly) that we are not alone!