Acquainted with the Night
Acquainted with the Night
by Robert Frost

Acquainted with the Night Themes

Little Words, Big Ideas

Isolation

While the speaker of "Acquainted with the Night" is acquainted with the night, his surroundings are all very distant, and, in the poem, he has no friends or family. He avoids the watchman, who is t...

Dissatisfaction

We think that The Rolling Stones should read "Acquainted with the Night": the speaker just can't get no satisfaction. He's sad, lonely, and distant, but at the same time, nothing seems wrong, eithe...

Man and the Natural World

While "Acquainted with the Night" takes place in a city, the speaker walks beyond the furthest city light and interacts with elements like rain, the moon, and the sky. There's a contrast between th...

Time

We're not sure about the timeline of "Acquainted with the Night," but the repetition of the phrase "I have been" seems to signal that the poem speaks about multiple repeated nights, which all took...