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:
- Fortune-Hunter, The – Canto 1 by William Somervile
- Олег Бундур – Ранним утром
- Youth
- Elm by Sylvia Plath
- Dreamers by Siegfried Sassoon
- America by Walter William Safar
- Николай Гумилев – На далекой звезде Венере
- Address to Beelzebub by Robert Burns
- The Bride-Cake by Robert Herrick
- Autumn poem – Ysabelle Moriarty poems | Poetry Monster
- To a Beloved Child by Patrick Pearse
- Михаил Лермонтов – Звуки и взор
- Song—A Fiddler in the North by Robert Burns
- Николай Заболоцкий – Детство
- It Is a Beauteous Evening by William Wordsworth
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
- In the Mile End Road poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- In the Black Forest poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- In September poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- In a Minor Key poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Impotens poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Felo de Se poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Contradictions poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Christopher Found poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Captivity poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Cambridge in the Long poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Borderland poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Between the Showers poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Ballade of a Special Edition poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- At Dawn poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- At a Dinner Party poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Wall Flower poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Reminiscence poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Prayer poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- A March Day in London poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- A London Plane-Tree poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
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.