Thank you for your kind words.
How long I worked on it? Difficult to say, normally 2 minutes a line (1 to translate, 1 to rhyme), but I did not checked it this time.
And this time I could use your beautiful English translation, which helped me to understand the more difficult parts.
Regarding the apostrophes, yes, it is because of the rhyme. The original line has 8 syllables, and in German you can shorten words this way, here by emitting the "weak" vowel "e".
By the way, I love poems about the mountains of Caucasus, and I don't know why. - "Who loves and knows why, does not love" (Antonio Porchia)
(https://lyricstranslate.com/de/voces-111-stimmen-111.html)
1960.