Acquainted With The Night by Robert Frost | Poems Rethabile Likes
"Acquainted With The Night"
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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-by;
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.
Robert Frost's "Acquainted With The Night" is one of the most haunting sonnets in the English language. Written in terza rima — the same form Dante used for The Divine Comedy — it captures a mood of profound urban isolation and existential loneliness.
The poem's speaker walks through a rain-soaked city at night, passing the furthest city light, looking down the saddest city lane, and avoiding the watchman's gaze. An interrupted cry comes from another street — but it is not for him. And above it all, a "luminary clock against the sky" proclaims a time that is "neither wrong nor right," suggesting a world beyond moral judgment, where the speaker simply exists in his solitude.
Frost is sometimes said to have regarded the poem as his "one bid for immortality" — a remarkable claim for a poet who wrote so many enduring works. There is a quiet power in its repetition and restraint, and in the final line's return to the opening, creating a sense of circularity and of the night closing in on itself. If in your thoughts you have ever been alone, except for the company of night, then you know what is being referred to here.
Listen to Frost's own voice — his New England cadence, the way he shapes each line — as you read along.
— Rethabile
Robert Frost reading "Acquainted With The Night"
In this video, Robert Frost reads his poem "Acquainted With The Night." His voice is measured and resonant, capturing the poem's mood of isolation and urban solitude.
Video source: YouTube. Duration approximately 2 minutes.
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