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:
- Владимир Степанов – Мышь и кошка
- On the Nativity of Christ by William Dunbar
- Love Poem by Aditya Kumar
- An Aquarium poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- To You. by Walt Whitman
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 121. Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Premature Blindness by Winston Riley
- Олег Григорьев – Вперед не рвись
- Hamlet As Told On The Street by Shel Silverstein
- A Child by William Ernest Henley
- Love’s Blindness poem – Alfred Austin
- Юлиан Анисимов – Из Рильке
- The Survivor by Primo Levi
- Николай Языков – А. С. Дириной
- If I Got You by Miraj Patel
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
- All Things Will Die poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Alfred Lord Tennyson; The Coming Of Arthur poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- After-Thought poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- A Farewell poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Villonaud for This Yule poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Villanelle: The Psychological Hour poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Ts’ai Chi’h poem – Ezra Pound poems
- These Fought in Any Case poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The Tree poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The Summons poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The Seeing Eye poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The Seafarer poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The Return poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The Plunge poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The Needle poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The Lake Isle poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The Garret poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The Garden poem – Ezra Pound poems
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.