Frost's Acquainted with the Night
The Neutrality of Time
Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night” is an American, or Innovative, sonnet. It features four tercets in terza rima, a form made famous by Dante, and a Shakespearean couplet. To read the poem and hear Frost recite it, please see “Acquainted with the Night.”
First Tercet: “I have been one acquainted with the night”
The speaker claims that he has “been one acquainted with the night.” He and night are not friends but merely acquaintances. After reporting that he knows something about night time in the city, he gives some examples. He is acquainted with the night because he has taken many walks down city streets, even in rain—he has “walked out in rain -- and back in rain.”
He has walked so far that he has “outwalked the furthest city light.” The speaker, of course, means “farthest” here, and there is no other reason to account for his use of “furthest” but that he made an error.
Second Tercet: “I have looked down the saddest city lane”
The speaker continues his list of night observations to support his claim that he has, in fact, been acquainted with the night. On one such walk, he has “looked down the saddest city lane.” This observation demonstrates that he has not merely walked in pleasant areas like the town square or to the movies, but he has even ventured to where there is poverty and maybe even squalor.
He has even been out so late that he has encountered security guards, and on the occasion of meeting one of these “watchm[en],” he has “dropped [his] eyes, unwilling to explain.” He did not feel obliged to explain to some watchman why he was out walking so late at night.
Of course, the guard might have stopped him and asked to explain anyway, even though he dropped his eyes, but apparently he was lucky enough to escape without being accosted. On the other hand, by even mentioning his “unwillingness to explain,” he reveals a level of guilt that he is reluctant to explore or acknowledge.
Third Tercet: “I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet”
On occasion during one of these late night city walking tours, he has suddenly caught the sound of some “interrupted cry” that carried from “over houses from another street.” Thus, he stopped to listen.
Fourth Tercet: “But not to call me back or say good-bye”
But as he listened to that “interrupted cry,” he realized that it was not someone calling him. At first upon hearing the cry, he seemed to think that someone was either calling for him to return or just to tell him good-bye, but he realizes that no one is calling him so he continues.
At this point, he notices a clock face in a clock tower which is “further still at an unearthly height.” Again, he means “farther,” because the clock appears at a great distance from him. It is not only far, but so high that it seems not of the earth.
Some readers have interpreted the “luminary clock against the sky” to be the moon, but Frost revealed that it was a clock tower in Ann Arbor, Michigan (Frost: Centennial Essays, 1974). While the moon interpretation is not impossible, it makes little sense to think of the moon as a clock. The moon does not reveal time in terms of hours, for example, as the sun does.
Couplet: “Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.”
The speaker then asserts that the clock “proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.” The speaker has demonstrated some consternation about his night walks through the city; his timid reaction to the watchman reveals that he felt he probably should not be out so late at night, but then upon seeing the clock, he reinterprets time, realizing that time is neutral, and only the human associates appropriateness with time.
He then repeats his claim, “I have been one acquainted with the night”—this time he is asserting his right to be out walking and observing night life. He is quite proud to state that he knows night time in the city, if only as an acquaintance, not a friend.
Robert Frost Stamp
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