<P> "Acquainted with the Night" is a poem by Robert Frost . It first appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review and was published in 1928 in his collection West - Running Brook . </P> <P> 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, One luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right . I have been one acquainted with the night . </P> <P> The poem is most often read as the poet / narrator's admission of having experienced depression and a vivid description of what that experience feels like . In this particular reading of the poem, "the night" is the depression itself, and the narrator describes how he views the world around him in this state of mind . Although he is in a city, he feels completely isolated from everything around him . </P> <P> The poem is written in strict iambic pentameter, with 14 lines like a sonnet, and with a terza rima rhyme scheme, which follows the complex pattern, aba bcb cdc dad aa . Terza rima ("third rhyme") was invented by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri for his epic poem The Divine Comedy . Because Italian is a language in which many words have vowel endings, terza rima is much less difficult to write in Italian than it is in English . Because of its difficulty, very few writers in English have attempted the form . However, Frost was a master of many forms, and "Acquainted With The Night" is one of the most famous examples of an American poem written in terza rima . </P>

Acquainted with the night by robert frost poem