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:
- Complaint by William Carlos Williams
- When Lovely Woman Stoops To Folly by Oliver Goldsmith
- Олег Бундур – Что будет, если
- Kore by Robert Creeley
- Николай Языков – Весна
- Numbers and the Bible
- Old Homeless Man by Walter William Safar
- My Words Embrace by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Me Imperturbe. by Walt Whitman
- Life poem – Yahya Kemal Beyatli poems | Poetry Monster
- In Christ there is No East Or West by John Oxenham
- Robert Burns: The Dean Of Faculty: A New Ballad
- E-waste by Nisha Gopalakrishnan
- The Meehoo with an Exactlywatt by Shel Silverstein
- Do You Remember Once
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
- Strumpet Song by Sylvia Plath
- Street Song by Sylvia Plath
- Stopped Dead by Sylvia Plath
- Stings by Sylvia Plath
- Stillborn by Sylvia Plath
- Spinster by Sylvia Plath
- Spider by Sylvia Plath
- Sow by Sylvia Plath
- Southern Sunrise by Sylvia Plath
- Snakecharmer by Sylvia Plath
- Sculptor by Sylvia Plath
- Rhyme by Sylvia Plath
- Resolve by Sylvia Plath
- Recantation by Sylvia Plath
- Pursuit by Sylvia Plath
- Purdah by Sylvia Plath
- Prospect by Sylvia Plath
- Private Ground by Sylvia Plath
- Point Shirley by Sylvia Plath
- Poems, Potatoes by Sylvia Plath
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.