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

Asiatic Russia: Caucasus, the Mountains

The Caucasus Mountains

By Lord Byron (1788–1824)

(From Heaven and Earth)

YE wilds, that look eternal; and thou cave,

Which seem’st unfathomable; and ye mountains,

So varied and so terrible in beauty;

Here, in your rugged majesty of rocks

And topling trees that twine their roots with stone

In perpendicular places, where the foot

Of man would tremble, could he reach them—yes,

Ye look eternal! Yet, in a few days,

Perhaps even hours, ye will be changed, rent, hurled

Before the mass of waters; and yon cave,

Which seems to lead into a lower world,

Shall have its depths searched by the sweeping wave,

And dolphins gambol in the lion’s den!