"Acquainted with the Night"

I haven’t forgotten entirely about sonnets during my recent peregrinations, & today’s Weekly Poem is a long-standing personal favorite written by none other than this blog’s titular banjoist, Robert Frost.

"Acquainted with the Night" is interesting on a number of levels. From a formal perspective, it does conclude with the couplet associated with English sonnets; however, rather than have three quatrains (four-line stanzas), typically with rhymes in alternate lines (e.g., the first stanza typically runs ABAB), the poem is written in Terza Rima—the stanza scheme of Dante’s Divina Commedia. As you can see the rhyme patterns link stanzas rather than dividing them. The rhyme scheme works as follows:

1A, 2B, 3A
4B, 5C, 6B
7C, 8D, 9C
10D, 11A, 12D
13A, 14A

This strikes me as a very peripatetic rhyme scheme as it carries the reader forward thru the poem; rather than providing three different perspectives in individualized quatrains, the four tercets (three-line stanzas) keep us moving on a walk thru the night. Even the concluding couplet isn’t an independent summation, since it links back to the preceding stanza thru rhyme.

"Acquainted with the Night" is also noteworthy for its wonderful use of speech rhythms. Although Frost typically worked in iambic pentameter, his lines flow very naturally because he had such a fine ear for the rhythm of everyday speech.

Frost worked well in the sonnet form—as far as I can recall, his other sonnets are all in the more traditional "English" form—three quatrains & a concluding couplet; a few other noteworthy Frost sonnets are "Never Again Would Bird's Song be the Same," "Once By the Pacific" & "Design."

Enjoy!


Acquainted with the Night


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,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Robert Frost


UPDATE: Eberle pointed out that I made rather a hash of the rhyme scheme - the price you pay for trying to think at 4:30 a.m. after a night of dreaming turmoil. I've corrected the rhyme scheme diagram since the initial posting.