Comparing Poems 'And Acquainted With The Night'

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“Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost and “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed and Where and Why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay uses similar tones, but their contrasting figures of speech and imagery communicate different views of loneliness. The tones used in both poems are similar and sometimes exact. From the beginning of the poem “Acquainted with the Night” there is a sense of sadness. The speaker states, “I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain” (1-2). The word choices in the first two lines convey loneliness. The word “one” implies he is by himself walking in and out of the rain. The speaker also uses the title as the first and last line of the poem which shows he was lonely in the beginning …show more content…

The speaker states, “Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree” (9), the personification in this line is obvious. A tree cannot know about the birds that have come and gone and also cannot miss them when they are gone. The effect is to intensify the poem’s mood, which expresses loss and loneliness. The speaker also says, “I only know that summer sang in me/A little while, that in me sings no more” (13-14). The summer cannot sing in someone. The personification here is also connected to the lonely tree. The brief time the speaker’s men called on her was like summer for the tree, with the birds that sung on the branches. Yet, now that winter has come the birds have gone; leaving her all alone. Both poems also use imagery differently. In “Acquainted with the Night” the speaker says, “I have looked down the saddest city lane” (4). The speaker is conveying that the kind of nights are not just an average dark and lonely night, but the darkest and the loneliest. The speaker also states “I have passed by the watchman on his beat/And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain” (5-6). The speaker looks down avoiding the watchman because he does not want to explain that he is trapped in his own

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