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:
- The Woodlands by William Barnes
- The Imperfect Lover by Siegfried Sassoon
- Power Of Music by William Wordsworth
- A Sorcerer Bids Farewell To Seem by Sylvia Plath
- power-of-thought.html
- The Huntsmen by Walter de la Mare
- The Hwomestead A-Vell Into Hand by William Barnes
- Mountain Wellhead
- To Foreign Lands. by Walt Whitman
- Николай Тихонов – Как след от весла
- Great-Heart by Rudyard Kipling
- Sonnet Xv
- Bob The Fiddler by William Barnes
- Arms And The Boy by Wilfred Owen
- Projector by Shreekumar Varma
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
- INTO THE LAIR by Satish Verma
- Intimidation by Satish Verma
- In Transit by Satish Verma
- In Thoughtless Mind by Satish Verma
- In Abeyance by Satish Verma
- In a Sombre Mood by Satish Verma
- Impresa by Satish Verma
- Immaculacy by Satish Verma
- I Begin To Think by Satish Verma
- Hurting Dive by Satish Verma
- Homing by Satish Verma
- Pandering by Satish Verma
- Holding On by Satish Verma
- OPTIONS by Satish Verma
- OFF-LIMITS by Satish Verma
- Oblivion by Satish Verma
- O You by Satish Verma
- NIGHT RAID by Satish Verma
- Night Light by Satish Verma
- Muttering by Satish Verma
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.