Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Russia: Vol. XX. 1876–79.

Baidar

Baidar Gate

By Edna Dean Proctor (1829–1923)

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,

“’T is Baidar Gate! ’t is Baidar Gate!”