Poet Spotlight: Mikhail Lermontov

Hi everyone! I'm back!

Today I want to share with you a poet I recently discovered: Mikhail Lermontov, the greatest figure in Russian Romanticism after the deceased Alexander Pushkin, and one of the greatest poets of his time. I was surprised I'd never heard of him before this week! But reading some of his poems, it really hit me how people from so long ago, through the power of words can still invoke such powerful emotion in people today, almost like these writers are speaking to us from the past. Writing is a lot like time travel!

Though following the rules of "only the good die young", Lermontov was killed in a duel in 1841, aged only 27 years. His best poems were written in the last five years of his life, with the exception of this one, my favourite:

THE ANGEL

The angel was flying through sky in midnight,

And softly he sang in his flight;

And clouds, and stars, and the moon in a throng

Hearkened to that holy song.

He sang of the garden of God's paradise,

Of innocent ghosts in its shade;

He sang of the God, and his vivacious praise

Was glories and unfeigned.

The juvenile soul he carried in arms

For worlds of distress and alarms;

The tune of his charming and heavenly song

Was left in the soul for long.

It roamed on earth many long nights and days,

Filled with a wonderful thirst,

And earth's boring songs could not ever replace

The sounds of heaven it lost.

Check out more about Lermontov here.

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