A poem by Alcaeus of Mytilene (c. 625/620 – c. 580 BC)
What constitutes a State?
Not high-raised battlement, or labored mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities fair, with spires and turrets crown’d;
No:–Men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued
In forest, brake or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude:–
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain;
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain.
A few random poems:
- A Performance At Hog Theater by Russell Edson
- The Farmer Of Tilsbury Vale by William Wordsworth
- Константин Бальмонт – Мост
- TRUNCATED by Satish Verma
- Джон Донн – О черная душа, Недуг напал
- Василий Жуковский – Человек
- Юрий Верховский – Как раненый олень кидается в поток
- Evening balcony by Vladimir Marku
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- Chris’mas Invitation by William Barnes
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Far In a Western Brookland poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- Far In a Western Brookland poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- Epitaph On An Army of Mercenaries poem – A. E. Housman
- Could Man Be Drunk Forever poem – A. E. Housman
- Bring, In This Timeless Grave To Throw poem – A. E. Housman
- Bredon Hill poem – A. E. Housman
- As Through the Wild Green Hills of Wyre poem – A. E. Housman
- Along the field as we came poem – A. E. Housman
- The Haymakers’ Song poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Blindness poem – Alfred Austin
- At His Grave poem – Alfred Austin
- Agatha poem – Alfred Austin
- Loves Blindness
- The Haymakers Song
- Loves Blindness
- At His Grave
- Agatha
- Why
- Where Are You
- Tell Me
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works

Alcaeus of Mytilene ( c. 625/620 – c. 580 Before Christ) ] was a lyric poet from the Greek island of Lesbos who is credited with inventing the Alcaic stanza. He was included in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria.