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 Маяковский – Птичка божия
- The Victory by Shahida Latif
- Sharing Eve’s Apple poem – John Keats poems
- The Clime Of My Birth by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Robert Burns: The Brigs Of Ayr: Inscribed to John Ballantine, Esq., Ayr.
- An Argument by Thomas Moore
- If By Chance Your Eye Offend You poem – A. E. Housman
- Drum-Taps. by Walt Whitman
- Leave Me, O Love Which Reachest But To Dust by Sir Philip Sidney
- Attention please! Attention please! by Roald Dahl
- Олег Сердобольский – Воробышек и крошки
- Жан де Лафонтен – Два Мула
- Disappointment by Tony Hoagland
- True Love by Robert Penn Warren
- The Garden by Abraham Cowley
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
- How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven by Vachel Lindsay
- How a Little Girl Sang by Vachel Lindsay
- How a Little Girl Danced by Vachel Lindsay
- Honor Among Scamps by Vachel Lindsay
- Here’s to the Mice! by Vachel Lindsay
- Heart of God by Vachel Lindsay
- Genesis by Vachel Lindsay
- General William Booth Enters into Heaven by Vachel Lindsay
- Galahad, Knight Who Perished by Vachel Lindsay
- Foreign Missions in Battle Array by Vachel Lindsay
- Factory Windows are Always Broken by Vachel Lindsay
- Euclid by Vachel Lindsay
- Epitaphs For Two Players by Vachel Lindsay
- Epilogue by Vachel Lindsay
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning by Vachel Lindsay
- Eden in Winter by Vachel Lindsay
- Drying Their Wings by Vachel Lindsay
- Darling Daughter of Babylon by Vachel Lindsay
- Concerning Emperors by Vachel Lindsay
- Caught in a Net by Vachel Lindsay
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.