Don't Berate Me! It Just So Happens
Don't berate me! It just so happens - I'm no type to sell words off-rack. Golden head of mine, growing heavy, Has reclined altogether back. Neither town nor the country endear me: That my love should have still been true! I'll quit everything. Grow a beard, And move off as a tramp about Russ. I'll put out of my head books and poems, Lay a rucksack over my back, After all, to a wretch in the open, Winds sing more than to anyone else. I'll smell up of black radish and onion, And, annoying the peace of the night, I'll blow nose in a fist, never hiding, And play fool in whatever I try. And I don't crave for anything better Than just day-dreaming, harking to storms Now that I am unable to get by In the wide world without being odd.
Don't Berate Me! It Just So Happens - meaning Summary
Voluntary Exile and Freedom
The speaker rejects societal expectations and conventional success, announcing a voluntary retreat from books, towns, and love into a tramp’s life across Russia. He embraces coarse habits and solitude, preferring winds, storms, and daydreams to social acceptance. The poem expresses weary self-awareness and a deliberate choice to be “odd,” finding freedom and authenticity in wandering and rough, unrefined living rather than in polite respectability.
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