As I was browsing the Internet for a copy of the poem so that I wouldn't have to retype it, I came across a list of Frost's poems. There, I rediscovered Acquainted With The Night. I've loved this poem for a long time-- long enough that it is in my handwritten book of poems that I started way back in 1989 while nannying in Garden City, New York. I never remember that Frost wrote this poem. I always try to hand it off to someone else.
I think that I first came aware of Acquainted With The Night while watching the television show Beauty and the Beast starring Ron Perlman (Hellboy) and Linda Hamilton (Terminator). Vincent, the Beast, often read poetry. Acquainted With The Night is included on Of Love and Hope: Music and Poetry from Beauty and the Beast. Ron Perlman has a perfect voice for reading poetry.
So anyway, I decided that I would work with this poem. I've had this beautiful Lorna's Laces lace weight yarn that was given to me by my friend Susan from the QCSnB. It's in shades of purple and grey and dark blue, There was A LOT of yarn in this skein. I've been hoarding this yarn for quite awhile since it's a spectacular yarn and there is sooo much of it. I started another project with it around Christmastime, but it didn't get far. The project really wasn't worthy of the yarn.
At the beginning of March, I went searching for a project that would parallel the poem and do justice to the yarn--while using as much of it as possible without needing more. I decided to go with Laura A. Patterson's pattern 'Evening'. It is a beautiful pattern and you can search for it on Ravelry. It uses almost all of my yarn, I do have some left over, and some nice gold glass 8/0 beads that I had in my bead stash.
After a few pattern issues, which I wouldn't have noticed if I only worked off of charts, this project got underway. I learned to add beads to my knitting. That size 13 steel crochet hook of mine got LOTS of use. I did my first provisional cast on. And, I learned to use a lifeline, which saved me more than once, although I did learn that I should move it up more often than I did. Once done, it got blocked on an old cutting board and left to dry under the ceiling fan in the sewing room. I've decided that my version of this pattern is more 'Night' for me than 'Evening'.
Here is Robert Frost's poem and pictures of my shawl.
Acquainted With The Night
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,
A luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
The shawl on the table at the library.
A section of the shawl from top to bottom.
Big stars and the top beaded border.
Tiny stars and hard to see beads.
Big stars and the bottom border.
A better view of the actual colour of the yarn.I think that this poem is so me in many, many ways, because, I have been one acquainted with the night...
