Beyond the Lines: Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night"

By Adam Sedia

Robert Frost’s talent radiates best from his shorter poems. His poetic voice, naturally laconic, finds its most expressive mode in his shortest poems. The tightness of form and economy of language allows Frost to pack layers of meaning into as few words as will express them effectively. “Fire and Ice” and “Nothing Gold Can Stay” exemplify this mastery.

Another poem that ranks with them is “Acquainted with the Night,” originally published in 1928 in Virginia Quarterly Review and appeared that same year in Frost’s collection, West-Running Brook. The full text of the poem is:

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 st…