The Dark

In the context of the poem, the dark is nighttime. But the dark also works metaphorically throughout the poem. When we think about darkness, a lot of different things come up: it is difficult to see in the dark, it represents the unknown, it is scary. (No—we're not afraid of the dark; we just happen to really like our Yoda night-light.) There is sometimes an element of evil in darkness, and it can also feel very lonely. Let's take a look at how some of these elements work in the poem.

• Title: The "darkness" in the title is especially ambiguous because we don't have any other information to attach to it. The first word in the title is "traveling." When we think about traveling from one place to another through the dark, it seems a bit ominous. It would be difficult to see where you are going and therefore difficult to reach your destination. Some of those other dark associations come into play as well—the unknown, an underlying feeling of something sinister or evil.
• Line 1: When the title is repeated as part of line 1, the darkness gets a little more specific. We still aren't sure exactly where we are or what is happening until a little later in stanza 1, but at least we know we are somewhere in the real world in some sort of a natural setting—a place where there are deer. Even when we do know exactly what is happening, that the dark is nothing more than the darkness of the night, all those other associations with darkness have already been planted in our heads (with the title and the first line) and those ominous feelings kind of stick with us throughout the poem.