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:
- Федор Сологуб – Высока луна Господня
- Untitled XXVII by Yunus Emre
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня автомобилиста
- Alimony by Shel Silverstein
- Fear by Vinko Kalinić
- Before The Law by Michael Major
- Tommy by Rudyard Kipling
- Владимир Степанов – Рассказ оружейника
- Red Planet Haiku by Thomas J Camp
- Olney Hymn 50: The Christian by William Cowper
- interpret_the_light.html
- My Friend by Rabindranath Tagore
- Saison Noir by Shaunna Harper
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песенка про мангустов
- Алишер Навои – Сердце взял мое сын мага
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
- Scoring Highly on the Psychopathy Scale by P.J.Reed
- Primrose by Patrick Kavanagh
- Pollination by Pamela L. Laskin
- This Evening Also by Paul Celan
- Landscape by Paul Celan
- Peace by Patrick Kavanagh
- Planet Earth by P. K. Page
- O Little Root of a Dream by Paul Celan
- Night Ray by Paul Celan
- Motel Pool by P. K. Page
- Miss Brown by Samuel Stephen Wakdok
- Miracles by Paul Hostovsky
- Memory Of My Father by Patrick Kavanagh
- Le monstre by Patryck Froissart
- Landscape by Paul Celan
- Jokes on You by Rohan Dunbar
- Pamela Griffiths – Pamela Griffiths
- In Spite Of by Patricia Farley
- In Memory Of My Mother by Patrick Kavanagh
- I Want Those Words Today by Pandian Chelliah
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.