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.

July 22, 1849

November 19, 1887

English

Emma Lazarus

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1492.

Thou two-faced year, Mother of Change and Fate,
Didst weep when Spain cast forth with flaming sword,
The children of the prophets of the Lord,
Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate.
Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state,
The West refused them, and the East abhorred.
No anchorage the known world could afford,
Close-locked was every port, barred every gate.
Then smiling, thou unveil'dst, O two-faced year,
A virgin world where doors of sunset part,
Saying, "Ho, all who weary, enter here!
There falls each ancient barrier that the art
Of race or creed or rank devised, to rear
Grim bulwarked hatred between heart and heart!"

1883.

Emma Lazarus

A Degenerate Age. (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.)

Where is the man who has been tried and found strong and sound?
Where is the friend of reason and of knowledge?
I see only sceptics and weaklings.
I see only prisoners in the durance of the senses,
And every fool and every spendthrift
Thinks himself as great a master as Aristotle.
Think'st thou that they have written poems?
Call'st thou that a Song?
I call it the cackling of ravens.
The zeal of the prophet must free poesy
From the embrace of wanton youths.
My song I have inscribed on the forehead of Time,
They know and hate it - for it is lofty.

Solomon Ben Judah Gabirol (Died Between 1070-80.)

Emma Lazarus

A June Night.

Ten o'clock: the broken moon
    Hangs not yet a half hour high,
    Yellow as a shield of brass,
In the dewy air of June,
    Poised between the vaulted sky
    And the ocean's liquid glass.


Earth lies in the shadow still;
    Low black bushes, trees, and lawn
    Night's ambrosial dews absorb;
Through the foliage creeps a thrill,
    Whispering of yon spectral dawn
    And the hidden climbing orb.


Higher, higher, gathering light,
    Veiling with a golden gauze
    All the trembling atmosphere,
See, the rayless disk grows white!
    Hark, the glittering billows pause!

    Faint, far sounds possess the ear.


Elves on such a night as this
    Spin their rings upon the grass;
    On the beach the wate...

Emma Lazarus

A Letter To His Friend Isaac. (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.)

But yesterday the earth drank like a child
With eager thirst the autumn rain.
Or like a wistful bride who waits the hour
Of love's mysterious bliss and pain.
And now the Spring is here with yearning eyes;
Midst shimmering golden flower-beds,
On meadows carpeted with varied hues,
In richest raiment clad, she treads.
She weaves a tapestry of bloom o'er all,
And myriad eyed young plants upspring,
White, green, or red like lips that to the mouth
Of the beloved one sweetly cling.
Whence come these radiant tints, these blended beams?
Here's such a dazzle, such a blaze,
As though each stole the splendor of the stars,
Fain to eclipse them with her rays.
Come! go we to the garden with our wine,
Which scatters sparks of hot desire,
Within our hand 't is cold, ...

Emma Lazarus

A Masque Of Venice.

    (A Dream.)


    Not a stain,
In the sun-brimmed sapphire cup that is the sky -
Not a ripple on the black translucent lane
Of the palace-walled lagoon.
    Not a cry
As the gondoliers with velvet oar glide by,
Through the golden afternoon.


    From this height
Where the carved, age-yellowed balcony o'erjuts
Yonder liquid, marble pavement, see the light
Shimmer soft beneath the bridge,
    That abuts
On a labyrinth of water-ways and shuts
Half their sky off with its ridge.


    We shall mark
All the pageant from this ivory porch of ours,
Masques and jesters, mimes and minstrels, while we hark
To their music as they fare.
    Scent their flowers
Flung from boat to boat in rainbow radiant showers
Throu...

Emma Lazarus

Acceptance.

Yea, she hath looked Truth grimly face to face,
    And drained unto the lees the proffered cup.
This silence is not patience, nor the grace
    Of recognition, meekly offered up,
But mere acceptance fraught with keenest pain,
Seeing that all her struggles must be vain.


Her future clear and terrible outlies, -
    This burden to be borne through all her days,
This crown of thorns pressed down above her eyes,
    This weight of trouble she may never raise.
No reconcilement doth she ask nor wait;
Knowing such things are, she endures her fate.


No brave endeavor of the broken will
    To cling to such poor stays as will abide
(Although the waves be wild and angry still)
    After the lapsing of the swollen tide.
No fear of further loss, no ...

Emma Lazarus

Admonition. (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.)

Long in the lap of childhood didst thou sleep,
Think how thy youth like chaff did disappear;
Shall life's sweet Spring forever last? Look up,
Old age approaches ominously near.
Oh shake thou off the world, even as the bird
Shakes off the midnight dew that clogged his wings.
Soar upward, seek redemption from thy guilt
And from the earthly dross that round thee clings.
Draw near to God, His holy angels know,
For whom His bounteous streams of mercy flow.

Abul Hassan Judah Ben Ha-Levi. (Born Between 1080-90.)

Emma Lazarus

Afternoon.

    Small, shapeless drifts of cloud
Sail slowly northward in the soft-hued sky,
    With blur half-tints and rolling summits bright,
By the late sun caressed; slight hazes shroud
    All things afar; shineth each leaf anigh
    With its own warmth and light.


    O'erblown by Southland airs,
The summer landscape basks in utter peace:
    In lazy streams the lazy clouds are seen;
Low hills, broad meadows, and large, clear-cut squares
    Of ripening corn-fields, rippled by the breeze,
    With shifting shade and sheen.


    Hark! and you may not hear
A sound less soothing than the rustle cool
    Of swaying leaves, the steady wiry drone
Of unseen crickets, sudden chirpings clear
    Of happy birds, the tinkle of the pool,
    Chafed ...

Emma Lazarus

Agamemnon's Tomb.

Uplift the ponderous, golden mask of death,
    And let the sun shine on him as it did
How many thousand years agone!    Beneath
    This worm-defying, uncorrupted lid,
Behold the young, heroic face, round-eyed,
Of one who in his full-flowered manhood died;
    Of nobler frame than creatures of to-day,
Swathed in fine linen cerecloths fold on fold,
With carven weapons wrought of bronze and gold,
    Accoutred like a warrior for the fray.


We gaze in awe at these huge-modeled limbs,
    Shrunk in death's narrow house, but hinting yet
Their ancient majesty; these sightless rims
    Whose living eyes the eyes of Helen met;
The speechless lips that ah! what tales might tell
Of earth's morning-tide when gods did dwell
    Amidst a generous-fashioned, god...

Emma Lazarus

Age And Death.

Come closer, kind, white, long-familiar friend,
    Embrace me, fold me to thy broad, soft breast.
Life has grown strange and cold, but thou dost bend
    Mild eyes of blessing wooing to my rest.
So often hast thou come, and from my side
So many hast thou lured, I only bide
Thy beck, to follow glad thy steps divine.
    Thy world is peopled for me; this world's bare.
    Through all these years my couch thou didst prepare.
Thou art supreme Love - kiss me - I am thine!

Emma Lazarus

Arabesque.

On a background of pale gold
I would trace with quaint design,
    Penciled fine,
Brilliant-colored, Moorish scenes,
Mosques and crescents, pages, queens,
    Line on line,
That the prose-world of to-day
Might the gorgeous Past's array
    Once behold.


On the magic painted shield
Rich Granada's Vega green
    Should be seen;
Crystal fountains, coolness flinging,
Hanging gardens' skyward springing
    Emerald sheen;
Ruddy when the daylight falls,
Crowned Alhambra's beetling walls
    Stand revealed;


Balconies that overbrow
Field and city, vale and stream.
    In a dream
Lulled the drowsy landscape basks;
    Mark the gleam
Silvery of each white-swathed peak!
Mountain-airs caress the cheek,
   ...

Emma Lazarus

Aspiration.

Dark lies the earth, and bright with worlds the sky:
That soft, large, lustrous star, that first outshone,
Still holds us spelled with potent sorcery.


Dilating, shrinking, lightening, it hath won
Our spirit with its strange strong influence,
And sways it as the tides beneath the moon.


What impulse this, o'ermastering heart and sense?
Exalted, thrilled, the freed soul fain would soar
Unto that point of shining prominence,


Craving new fields and some unheard-of shore,
Yea, all the heavens, for her activity,
To mount with daring flight, to hover o'er


Low hills of earth, flat meadows, level sea,
And earthly joy and trouble.    In this hour
Of waning light and sound, of mystery,


Of shadowed love and beauty-veil...

Emma Lazarus

August Moon.

Look! the round-cheeked moon floats high,
In the glowing August sky,
Quenching all her neighbor stars,
Save the steady flame of Mars.
White as silver shines the sea,
Far-off sails like phantoms be,
Gliding o'er that lake of light,
Vanishing in nether night.
Heavy hangs the tasseled corn,
Sighing for the cordial morn;
But the marshy-meadows bare,
Love this spectral-lighted air,
Drink the dews and lift their song,
Chirp of crickets all night long;
Earth and sea enchanted lie
'Neath that moon-usurped sky.


To the faces of our friends
Unfamiliar traits she lends -
Quaint, white witch, who looketh down
With a glamour all her own.
Hushed are laughter, jest, and speech,
Mute and heedless each of each,
In the glory wan we sit,<...

Emma Lazarus

Autumn Sadness.

Air and sky are swathed in gold
    Fold on fold,
Light glows through the trees like wine.
Earth, sun-quickened, swoons for bliss
    'Neath his kiss,
Breathless in a trance divine.


Nature pauses from her task,
    Just to bask
In these lull'd transfigured hours.
The green leaf nor stays nor goes,
    But it grows
Royaler than mid-June's flowers.


Such impassioned silence fills
    All the hills
Burning with unflickering fire -
Such a blood-red splendor stains
    The leaves' veins,
Life seems one fulfilled desire.


While earth, sea, and heavens shine,
    Heart of mine,
Say, what art thou waiting for?
Shall the cup ne'er reach the lip,
    But still slip
Till the life-long thirst give o'er?<...

Emma Lazarus

Bar Kochba.

Weep, Israel! your tardy meed outpour
Of grateful homage on his fallen head,
That never coronal of triumph wore,
Untombed, dishonored, and unchapleted.
If Victory makes the hero, raw Success
The stamp of virtue, unremembered
Be then the desperate strife, the storm and stress
Of the last Warrior Jew. But if the man
Who dies for freedom, loving all things less,
Against world-legions, mustering his poor clan;
The weak, the wronged, the miserable, to send
Their death-cry's protest through the ages' span -
If such an one be worthy, ye shall lend
Eternal thanks to him, eternal praise.
Nobler the conquered than the conqueror's end!

Emma Lazarus

Chopin.

    I.


A    dream of interlinking hands, of feet
Tireless to spin the unseen, fairy woof,
Of the entangling waltz.    Bright eyebeams meet,
Gay laughter echoes from the vaulted roof.
Warm perfumes rise; the soft unflickering glow
Of branching lights sets off the changeful charms
Of glancing gems, rich stuffs, dazzling snow
Of necks unkerchieft, and bare, clinging arms.
Hark to the music!    How beneath the strain
Of reckless revelry, vibrates and sobs
One fundamental chord of constant pain,
The pulse-beat of the poet's heart that throbs.
So yearns, though all the dancing waves rejoice,
The troubled sea's disconsolate, deep voice.



    II.


Who shall proclaim the golden fable false
Of Orpheus' miracles?    This subtl...

Emma Lazarus

Chrysalis. (Little Poems In Prose.)

1. Long, long has the Orient-Jew spun around his helplessness the cunningly enmeshed web of Talmud and Kabbala.

2. Imprisoned in dark corners of misery and oppression, closely he drew about him the dust-gray filaments, soft as silk and stubborn as steel, until he lay death-stiffened in mummied seclusion.

3. And the world has named him an ugly worm, shunning the blessed daylight.

4. But when the emancipating springtide breathes wholesome, quickening airs, when the Sun of Love shines out with cordial fires, lo, the Soul of Israel bursts her cobweb sheath, and flies forth attired in the winged beauty of immortality.

Emma Lazarus

City Visions.

    I.


As the blind Milton's memory of light,
The deaf Beethoven's phantasy of tone,
Wrought joys for them surpassing all things known
In our restricted sphere of sound and sight, -
So while the glaring streets of brick and stone
Vex with heat, noise, and dust from morn till night,
I will give rein to Fancy, taking flight
From dismal now and here, and dwell alone
With new-enfranchised senses.    All day long,
Think ye 't is I, who sit 'twixt darkened walls,
While ye chase beauty over land and sea?
Uplift on wings of some rare poet's song,
Where the wide billow laughs and leaps and falls,
I soar cloud-high, free as the the winds are free.



    II.


Who grasps the substance? who 'mid shadows strays?
He who within some...

Emma Lazarus

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