O Baidar Gate! lone Baidar Gate!
What glories by thy portals wait!—
Beyond the pines, wide-boughed and old,
Cliffs such as climb in Alpine hold;
Above, the blue Crimean sky
Where, in still noons, the eagles fly,
And poise as if 't were bliss to be
Becalmed upon that azure sea!
Below, the Euxine with its sails
Fanned by the cool Caucasian gales;
And, all between, the glen, the glade,
Where Tartar girls their tresses braid,
And slopes where silver streamlets run,
And grapes hang, purple, in the sun.
And when, within the wood-fire's glow,
Fond friends tell tales of long-ago,
And each recalls some lovely scene
By mountain pass or meadow green,—
If they shall turn and ask of me,
The rarest glimpse of earth and sea,
I'll say, with memory's joy elate,
"'Tis Baidar Gate! 'tis Baidar Gate!"