You’ll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may as well go patiently on with our life,
And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun
For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.
It is true the longest drouth will end in rain,
The longest peace in China will end in strife.
Still it wouldn’t reward the watcher to stay awake
In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break
On his particular time and personal sight.
That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night.

This poem is about being able to want somebody very and the result of their return. Frost displays this idea by many lines like “The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,”. He shows that two things may come close together but they are still so far apart. By saying the line “It is true the longest drouth will end in rain,” you get a sense that the narrator finally comes together with who they have been waiting for. Finally Frost shows the image that what the narrator has been waiting for is not worth. He shows this by the line “Still it wouldn’t reward the watcher to stay awake” this is a metaphor for saying his wait not rewarding. The poem represents a person’s wait for the return of a certain someone and when finally coming together the wait is not worth it in the end.

The birth of the poet Robert Lee Frost happened on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, California. Roberts father William Prescott Frost Jr. came from New Hampshire to San Francisco to obtain his professionalism as a journalist. That’s when his gambling and drinking addiction and habits started to happen. When he passed away from tuberculosis it left Robert and his mother in a bad financial problem. Since both his parents shared the profession of a teacher (although his father persuaded journalism as well) Robert had an early introduction to literature and reading. He often studied many different like William Shakespeare and others. He developed as he grew older a strong love for nature.

Frost was attending Lawrence high school while he was writing poetry (some of which were published in the schools paper). He was very academically smart and was the top of his class, which after high school he attended Dartmouth, the Ivy League College in Hanover, New Hampshire until he found that the college life was not for him. Then he simply worked other jobs while continuing writing his poetry. In 1894 Robert was lucky enough to get his poem “My Butterfly: An Elegy” published by the magazine Independent. A year later he married Elinor Miriam White. Elinor was his co-valedictorian from school. Throughout their lives they had six children Elliot, Carol, Lesley, Irma, Marjorie and Elinor

Frost went to Harvard University in 1897 but left in 1899 due to certain illnesses. Although he did leave before getting his degree Frost was awarded with it later on. In 1900 Frost and his family moved on a farm to support themselves. That year both Frost’s mother and son died (Elliot). Several years later, one day after birth Elinor Bettina died. Once 1911 came around Robert sold the farm to travel to England. Both him and Elinor had intentions of going.

After twenty years of trying Frosts poetry collection “A Boy’s Will” was published in 1913. After that Robert was able to have more publishers publish his work and also he gained different supporters from different places, which helped promote his poetry. In 1915 Frost and his family were back in New Hampshire. A year later Frost was then teaching at a College, also his “Mountain Interval” was published.

After more and more publishing of his work Robert Frost began to be a popular speaker and very well known. He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for a second time in 1931. By now all his children were happily married, some even having grandchildren. He always stayed close with all of them. Although sadly Marjorie died in 1934 after giving birth, Elinor died in 1938 from a heart attack and Carol committed suicide in 1940.

Robert Frost was well known and talented enough to read his poem “The Gift Outright” at John F. Kennedy’s Inauguration to become the president of the United States of America in 1942. After nine months after Frost’s death (January 29^th, 1947) John F. Kennedy gave a speech at Amherst College praising Frost and his work and his importance to the Arts in America.

http://www.online-literature.com/frost/

Acquainted with the Night
by: Robert Frost

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.

Alliteration – The repletion of the line “I have been one acquainted with the night.”

Closed form – the poem is written in closed form

Caesura – the long pause in the line “I have walked out in rain — and back in rain”

Image – you see the literary device image a lot because the poem paints a picture in your head of the lonely streets at night.

Rhyme – There is a rhyme scheme in this poem

Rhythm – The lines in this poem carry out a similar rhythm

Tercet – this poem contains many three line stanzas

This poem just talks about the loneliness of the streets and the night and the narrator of the poem gets acquainted with the night or acquainted with loneliness.

This poem by Robert Frost depicts loneliness within the night. The narrator of the poem says he has been acquainted with the night but the deeper meaning about it means he has become one, or friends with loneliness. He talks about walking down the streets alone and hearing cries far away showing that there is no one near by and that he is alone. This concept is shown by the line; “I have walked out in rain — and back in rain.”. This gives the reader a picture that this person walks alone through the night in the rain because he does not have anyone or anything else left. By saying “I have outwalked the furthest city light.” it means they has been everywhere in the city at night or he has been through loneliness for quite some time. By saying the line “But not to call me back or say good-bye;” the narrator displays the image that people would never call him back or say goodbye, which help resulted in their loneliness. This poem is a metaphor for the being acquainted with the night is being one with being lonely.

          Over many years humans went from hunting for our meals and eating it raw, to preparing food and cooking food, to synthetically adding flavour by artificial means. The food industry is forever changing but is it for the worse, or is it for better?  At what point did adding preservatives and artificial flavouring benefit the nutritious value of foods to be consumed by humans? The answer to this is at no point was these artificial flavours and preservatives meant to benefit us in nutrition wise. The more synthetics and artificial flavouring and added substances in our food today takes away from the nutrition and health benefits from food.

          Most of the added substances to food are to make them appeal more tasty are more enjoyable to eat. Although these added flavours or substances might make food taste a little bit better than its pure form it often takes away from many nutritional aspects. By making the most desirable food according to taste is basically making the unhealthiest food to consume. Most consumers today don’t realize the preservatives and the synthetic flavours are a bad choice for your diet so of coarse they keep buying the food that is more tasty or cheaper (cheaper because of different preservatives).

          Like stated in the paper In Defence of Food by Michael Pollens, he mentions that in all of life animals judge whether the food is good to eat or not by their sense. Using artificial sweeteners and synthetics tricks are sense in thinking that the food is good for us when in fact it is the opposite. For example sweetener must be good because of the fact that it is a great deal sweeter then sugar but with much less calories, at least that’s what are sense of taste tells us but none of senses pick up the aspartame that makes it sweet and also is a carcinogen. So you have to ask your self in this case is it more important to consumer a couple less calories or consume something with little to no calories but is hypothesized to be a link to causing cancer in humans.

          One of the fundamental transformations Michael Pollens talks about in his paper is that food went from quality to quantity. So the production of food now doesn’t care about the quality \and nutrition of the products compared to the quantity and taste of products. In the eyes of the food corporations they see more money in a large quantity of food with less nutrition compare to a low quantity of food packed with nutrition. This is where the development of food really gets bad. A prime example is tomatoes soup… which ironically now a days have no tomatoes in them simply because it is cheaper to throw the nutritious tomatoes away and replace them with cheap artificial flavouring. When you’re at the point where your tomato soup does not contain any tomatoes you know the food industry really took away the quality and replaced it with quantity.

          Food industries even try to trick the consumers that are aware of the health flaws of certain foods. It is a known fact that brown bread is a much healthier choice than white bread. But also costs more to produce then white bread. Certain types of brown bread is just in fact the white bread mixed with molasses for a cost reduced way to make “brown” bread, but gives the consumer actually no benefited nutritious value that he thinks he’ll be getting when buying the bread. There is proof of this happening everywhere for example if you look at the Tim-Hortons nutrition guide there whole wheat and white buns have the exact nutritional values telling you when you have a whole wheat bun you should just have a white bun because they are identical besides in looks.

          Mass production is a very important part of the food corporations and industries today. They want to make as much product as fast as they can for as cheap as they can. When farming food it doesn’t matter how well you maintain your food it matters how quick you can harvest and obtain the food to the corporations. It doesn’t matter if you let cattle feed on grasses that are very health beneficial to the cows and the consumers of the cows, we now feed them special food to make them grow bigger and faster (but without the nutrients of the different grasses). Mass production takes away from the quality of the food.

          Through majority the food manufacturers tend to take away nutrition and implant their artificial flavours, synthetic flavours, and preservatives there are certain manufactures now that do try and give you the most nutrition possible. They try to give you fresh food or whole food compared to refined food that was described in the paper.  Also there are cases that the bigger manufactures are starting to keep whole grains and nutritious ingredients like that in the food to benefit people, although not all food industries do this it is a start that there are some that does. Another good thing that food industries are starting to do is labelling the healthier choices in food with a specific label so the buyer knows if he or she is making a healthy decision in buying a certain kind of food or drink.                                               

          Therefore just like it is stated in the paper In Defence of Food by Michael Pollens the foods today are lacking in their true nutritional potential. Through preservatives, synthetic and artificial flavours the food corporations replaced the quality of food with quantity of food. Although there are some corporations that offer healthy nutritious food most or the majority of food corporations alter the food for profit. These alterations is what takes the nutritional potential and value out of the food and it is why consumers are missing out when they buy from the grocery store.