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:
- Without You by Miraj Patel
- Вера Павлова – Твоя хладность
- A Winter Evening poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Степан Щипачев – Застольное слово
- Angel Of Better Days To Come
- Sonnet Iv
- Colonus’ Praise by William Butler Yeats
- Vestiges poem – A. Van Jordan poems
- On The Plethora Of Dryads by Sylvia Plath
- Аля Кудряшева – Ну что я могу ответить
- The Story of Ung by Rudyard Kipling
- Константин Бальмонт – Морское дно
- Nothing Stays Put poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- My arm for a pillow by Yosa Buson
- Владимир Бенедиктов – При иллюминации
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
- Dickinson And The Alabaster Gogyohka
- Dawned Again
- Create
- Conference Swan Beauty
- Colors And Sounds
- Children039s Eyes
- Audience With A Poet Written December 13 1976 For Robert E Hayden Ph D
- Athens Stone Of Sapphire Of Ground The Ring
- As With Recitation And The Loss Of A Kuhi
- Antediluvian Kural On Twitter
- Alexander
- Acts Of Love
- A Single Man
- A Poet039s Privilege
- A Poem
- A Dialogue
- A City One Wish
- A Choka Is A Littoral Drift
- Gazebo
- All Days Seem Same
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.