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:
- Dead Men’s Love by Rupert Brooke
- My Paramour Was Loneliness
- Николай Языков – Элегия (Есть много всяких мук – и много я их знаю)
- A Stone Is Nobody’s by Russell Edson
- The Winds Out of the West Land Blow poem – A. E. Housman
- The Angel Of The Church by William Gilmore Simms
- Face Lift by Sylvia Plath
- With A Copy Of Shakespeares Sonnets On Leaving College
- Another by Thomas Carew
- Astigmatism poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Conversation Galante by T. S. Eliot
- A Garden, Written after the Civil Wars poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- Robert Burns: Sappho Redivivus: Fragment
- February 23
- Владимир Британишский – Философы! Не верьте островам
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
- Sunt Leones by Stevie Smith
- Pad, Pad by Stevie Smith
- Our Bog Is Dood by Stevie Smith
- Not Waving But Drowning by Stevie Smith
- Nor We Of Her To Him by Stevie Smith
- Never Again by Stevie Smith
- My Heart Was Full by Stevie Smith
- My Heart Goes Out by Stevie Smith
- Mother, Among The Dustbins by Stevie Smith
- Infelice by Stevie Smith
- In The Night by Stevie Smith
- I Remember by Stevie Smith
- I Do Not Speak by Stevie Smith
- Happiness by Stevie Smith
- Freddy by Stevie Smith
- Exeat by Stevie Smith
- Edmonton, thy cemetery by Stevie Smith
- Drugs Made Pauline Vague by Stevie Smith
- Deeply Morbid by Stevie Smith
- Conviction (iv) by Stevie Smith
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.