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 Lady And The Earthenware Head by Sylvia Plath
- The Lesson by Maya Angelou
- Confession by Neelam Sinha
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Обновление
- Ольга Берггольц – О, наверное, он не вернётся
- Ianthe by Walter Savage Landor
- States! by Walt Whitman
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 02 – part 06 by Torquato Tasso
- Influence of Natural Objects by William Wordsworth
- Владислав Крапивин – Рыжий конь
- Михаил Ломоносов – На Сарское село августа 24 дня 1764 года
- Из всех искусств кинематограф
- Юлия Друнина – Зима, зима нагрянет скоро
- 1991-I by Wendell Berry
- Who’s Who by W H Auden
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
- Kodja Mustafa Pasha poem – Yahya Kemal Beyatli poems | Poetry Monster
- Itri poem – Yahya Kemal Beyatli poems | Poetry Monster
- He comes poem – Yehudah ha-Levi poems | Poetry Monster
- From the morrow poem – Yamabe no Akahito poems | Poetry Monster
- From the bay at Tago poem – Yamabe no Akahito poems | Poetry Monster
- Feeling Lazy poem – Yang Wan-Li poems | Poetry Monster
- A love song poem – Yehudah ha-Levi poems | Poetry Monster
- Don’t Light The Candles by Yahia Al-Samawy
- The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
- Émigrés by Anna Barkova
- A Sure Sign by Georgi Ladonshchikov
- Civil War Songs
- I have outlived my own desires by Alexander Pushkin (Pouchkine)
- In Defense of Santa Claus
- Winter Apples by Tatiana Gusarova, translated by Fledermaus
- Такахама Кёси – О, как ночь коротка
- Такахама Кёси – Неспешно ступает
- Такахама Кёси – Мох зеленый примят
- Такахама Кёси – Мимо порта родного
- Такахама Кёси – Мацумуси пищит
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.