I Go Out on the Road Alone

This poem was recited/sung by Mikhail Gorbachev at the close of the wonderful interview-documentary Meeting Gorbachev.

Alone I set out on the road;
The flinty path is sparkling in the mist;
The night is still. The desert harks to God,
And star with star converses.

The vault is overwhelmed with solemn wonder
The earth in cobalt aura sleeps. . .
Why do I feel so pained and troubled?
What do I harbor: hope, regrets?

I see no hope in years to come,
Have no regrets for things gone by.
All that I seek is peace and freedom!
To lose myself and sleep!

But not the frozen slumber of the grave…
I’d like eternal sleep to leave
My life force dozing in my breast
Gently with my breath to rise and fall;

By night and day, my hearing would be soothed
By voices sweet, singing to me of love.
And over me, forever green,
A dark oak tree would bend and rustle.

By Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (1841)

2 thoughts on “I Go Out on the Road Alone

  1. Hi Harry, The poems you’ve been writing and the last two you posted by Whitman and Gorbachev are unsettling and comforting at the same time. Beautiful it’s sad. My 77th birthday is coming up. I’d like to get together. Brings up all these feelings. June

    Sent from my iPhone

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  2. Hi Harry, Didn’t mean to send this out-was still thinking what to say. Would really like to get together tho. Your P4P question, on questioning borders was so on the mark

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