Sonnets from the Crimea by Adam Mickiewicz

When Tsar the Polish poet southward sent
For stirring trouble and renewed dissent
He took his pen — described the lands he crossed
The steppes so vast, the palaces long lost

Exiles who before Adam M. had gone
And Muslims who so well had served their Khan
Crimean shores, the mounts above them ranged
The proudest peak, great Tschatir Dagh, unchang’d

All these and characters Mickiewicz met
Or conjured for the sonnets’ lines he set
Not twenty verses flowed fast from his pen
Yet famed across the centuries since then

Perhaps they are not read so much these days
So let me recommend them all with praise.