Currents. (Little Poems In Prose.)

1. Vast oceanic movements, the flux and reflux of immeasurable tides, oversweep our continent.

2. From the far Caucasian steppes, from the squalid Ghettos of Europe,

3. From Odessa and Bucharest, from Kief, and Ekaterinoslav,

4. Hark to the cry of the exiles of Babylon, the voice of Rachel mourning for her children, of Israel lamenting for Zion.

5. And lo, like a turbid stream, the long-pent flood bursts the dykes of oppression and rushes hitherward.

6. Unto her ample breast, the generous mother of nations welcomes them.

7. The herdsman of Canaan and the seed of Jerusalem's royal shepherd renew their youth amid the pastoral plains of Texas and the golden valleys of the Sierras.

Emma Lazarus

Emma Lazarus was a poet, writer, and activist best known for her sonnet 'The New Colossus,' which is engraved on a bronze plaque on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Born in New York City, she was an advocate for Jewish causes and immigrants' rights. Inspired by the plight of Jewish refugees, her work often touched on themes of freedom and identity. Lazarus was a prominent figure in the American literary scene of the 19th century, befriending other writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Emma Lazarus

Hope.

Emma Lazarus, Simple Poetry

Confused Dreams.

Emma Lazarus, Simple Poetry

The New Colossus.*

Emma Lazarus, Simple Poetry

1492.

Emma Lazarus, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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The Exodus. (August 3, 1492.) (Little Poems In Prose.)

1. The Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the dusty pilgrims crawl like an endless serpent along treeless plains and bleached highroads, through rock-split ravines and castellated, cathedral-shadowed towns.

2. The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond shell, bows painfully upon his staff. The beautiful young mother, ivory-pale, well-nigh swoons beneath her burden; in her large enfolding arms nestles her sleeping babe, round her knees flock her little ones with bruised and bleeding feet. "Mother, shall we soon be there?"

3. The youth with Christ-like countenance speaks comfortably to father and brother, to maiden and wife. In his breast, his own heart is broken.

4. The halt, the blind, are amid the train. Sturdy pack-horses laboriously drag the tented wagons wherein lie the sick athirst with fever....

Emma Lazarus

On The Voyage To Jerusalem. (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.)

        I.


My two-score years and ten are over,
Never again shall youth be mine.
The years are ready-winged for flying,
What crav'st thou still of feast and wine?
Wilt thou still court man's acclamation,
Forgetting what the Lord hath said?
And forfeiting thy weal eternal,
By thine own guilty heart misled?
Shalt thou have never done with folly,
Still fresh and new must it arise?
Oh heed it not, heed not the senses,
But follow God, be meek and wise;
Yea, profit by thy days remaining,
They hurry swiftly to the goal.
Be zealous in the Lord's high service,
And banish falsehood from thy soul.
Use all thy strength, use all thy fervor,
Defy thine own desires, awaken!
Be not afraid when seas are foaming,
And earth to her foundations shak...

Emma Lazarus

Longing.

Look westward o'er the steaming rain-washed slopes,
    Now satisfied with sunshine, and behold
Those lustrous clouds, as glorious as our hopes,
    Softened with feathery fleece of downy gold,
    In all fantastic, huddled shapes uprolled,
Floating like dreams, and melting silently,
In the blue upper regions of pure sky.


The eye is filled with beauty, and the heart
    Rejoiced with sense of life and peace renewed;
And yet at such an hour as this, upstart
    Vague myriad longing, restless, unsubdued,
    And causeless tears from melancholy mood,
Strange discontent with earth's and nature's best,
Desires and yearnings that may find no rest.

Emma Lazarus

As Consequent, Etc.

As consequent from store of summer rains,
Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,
Or many a herb-lined brook's reticulations,
Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea,
Songs of continued years I sing.

Life's ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend,
With the old streams of death.)

Some threading Ohio's farm-fields or the woods,
Some down Colorado's cañons from sources of perpetual snow,
Some half-hid in Oregon, or away southward in Texas,
Some in the north finding their way to Erie, Niagara, Ottawa,
Some to Atlantica's bays, and so to the great salt brine.

In you whoe'er you are my book perusing,
In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing,
All, all toward the mystic ocean tending.

Currents for starting a continent new,

Walt Whitman

Matins.

Gray earth, gray mist, gray sky:
Through vapors hurrying by,
Larger than wont, on high
    Floats the horned, yellow moon.
Chill airs are faintly stirred,
And far away is heard,
Of some fresh-awakened bird,
    The querulous, shrill tune.


The dark mist hides the face
Of the dim land: no trace
Of rock or river's place
    In the thick air is drawn;
But dripping grass smells sweet,
And rustling branches meet,
And sounding water greet
    The slow, sure, sacred dawn.


Past is the long black night,
With its keen lightnings white,
Thunder and floods: new light
    The glimmering low east streaks.
The dense clouds part: between
Their jagged rents are seen
Pale reaches blue and green,
    As the mirk curtain b...

Emma Lazarus

In Exile.

"Since that day till now our life is one unbroken paradise. We live a true brotherly life. Every evening after supper we take a seat under the mighty oak and sing our songs." - Extract from a letter of a Russian refugee in Texas.


Twilight is here, soft breezes bow the grass,
Day's sounds of various toil break slowly off,
The yoke-freed oxen low, the patient ass
Dips his dry nostril in the cool, deep trough.
Up from the prairie the tanned herdsmen pass
With frothy pails, guiding with voices rough
Their udder-lightened kine. Fresh smells of earth,
The rich, black furrows of the glebe send forth.


After the Southern day of heavy toil,
How good to lie, with limbs relaxed, brows bare
To evening's fan, and watch the smoke-wreaths coil
Up from one's pipe-stem thro...

Emma Lazarus