Please analyze "Out in the Dark" by Edward Thomas.

"Out in the Dark" is a poem written by Edward Thomas.
Though he wrote less than 150 poems in his lifetime (having written essays, etc., before
he turned to verse), he stands out as an unconventional Victorian poet, known also for
his war poetry. This poem is said to have been written while on leave with his family,
from the first world war, which would eventually claim his life. He was a lover of
nature and had a close friendship and working relationship with Robert Frost, another
poet with a love of nature. The images of nature abound in this
poem.

The poem is made up of four five-line stanzas. In
each stanza, the end rhyme of each set of five lines has the same sound. In other words,
in the first stanza, all the end rhymes of the other lines in that stanza rhyme with
"snow."

The author introduces the setting of the poem: it
is dark and there is snow on the ground. Thomas provides the beautiful image of a doe
and fawns: the word " href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fallow">fallow" here means
"of a light yellowish-brown color." The sense the author gives us in the first stanza is
that out in the dark of a cold winter night, the fallow fawns and doe (of the same
color—are they related?) are invisible in the night, as the wind blows fiercely—the wind
is moving as fast as the stars
move slowly.

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Out in the dark over
the snow

The fallow fawns invisible
go

With the fallow
doe...

In the second stanza,
the author describes that the darkness moves in a stealthy and haunting way, which may
account for his fear when the lamp suddenly goes out. It seems that he is saying that
the darkness moves more swiftly that the fastest dog, when the light is extinquished…he
personifies the darkness, saying that it "arrives" and all else is covered by it, or
"drowned."

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Stealthily the dark haunts
round

And, when a lamp goes, without
sound

At a swifter bound

Than
the swiftest
hound,

Arrives...

All
sharing the dark now—the star, the speaker, the wind and the deer—they are bound by the
darkness: this they all have in common.

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And star and I and wind and
deer

Are in the dark
together...

And while some of
them may be near—either literally by location or because they are all sharing the
experience of complete darkness— certain things separate them. The star is actually very
far away and, in fear, the animals may have picked up the speaker's scent on the wind.
The dark they may have in common, but they are all very different, and in the darkness,
the speaker admits to fear that "drums on my ear," even though he is in the "sage" or
wise company of a celestial body, beautiful animals of nature and the wind—the company
is "drear" perhaps because of the darkness or the winter cold, or
both.

The last stanza presents a challenge. It
seems that within the universe of things that can be seen, light
may seem sometimes weak and little—perhaps this refers to how the world can sometimes
seem like a dark place—maybe when worries or problems overwhelm us. Love and delight may
not be able to stand up against things of might, and perhaps this refers to war,
or power, that often takes little note of the sweeter aspects of
life. At the same time, the first and last line of the final stanza may be tied
together, as the lines in between are all separated by commas—like a list. Perhaps it
makes more sense to read:

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How weak and little is the
light…

If you love it not, of
night.

This may mean that if
you do not love the night and the darkness, the light may seem weak and little,
especially if you are afraid.