The Monday Poem: ‘The New Colossus’ by Emma Lazarus

by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

About this poem

It’s a sonnet written to help raise money for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. It was engraved on the statue’s pedestal in 1903. Of late it has become a bit controversial among politicians.  Current political histrionics aside the poem has become an important piece of American culture. John F. Kennedy quoted it in his book, A Nation of Immigrants, classical composer David Ludwig set the poem to music, American Poet Sylvia Plath referred to it in her poem Lady Lazarus. Irving Berlin and Alfred Hitchcock also quoted it in their works. We’ll close this little missive with a quotation by one of America’s more highly regarded current authors, Paul Auster: 
 “Bartholdi’s gigantic effigy was originally intended as a monument to the principles of international republicanism, but ‘The New Colossus’ reinvented the statue’s purpose, turning Liberty into a welcoming mother, a symbol of hope to the outcasts and downtrodden of the world.”