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:
- Юнна Мориц – Дрожащие губы и скрежет плаща
- Little Abigail and the Beautiful Pony by Shel Silverstein
- To a Virtuous Young Lady poem – John Milton poems
- The Best Time Of The Day by Raymond Carver
- Brasilia by Sylvia Plath
- Pure call of the wilderness by Vinko Kalinic
- Федор Сологуб – Выйди в поле полночное
- I like to let the word fly about by Murali Sivaramakrishnan
- Medallion by Sylvia Plath
- Confession (to Alina Osipova, 1826) poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Низами Гянджеви – Когда ее ароматом неслышно ветер повеет
- Гавриил Державин – Задумчивость
- Sonnet # 8 by Luis A. Estable
- The Heart’s House by Sara Teasdale
- Cino poem – Ezra Pound poems
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
- Golden Eyes
- From Behind The Lattice
- Feroza
- Feroke
- Fate Knows No Tears
- Farewell
- Fancy
- Famine Song
- Early Love
- Disappointment
- Deserted Gipsys Song Hillside Camp
- Dedication
- Dedication To Malcolm Nicolson
- Camp Followers Song Gomal River
- Back To The Border
- Au Salon
- Atavism
- Ashore
- Among The Sandhills
- Among The Rice Fields
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.