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!”
– “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887)
Born on July 22, 1849 in New York City to a wealthy sugar refining family of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish descent, Emma Lazarus was the poet who wrote “The New Colossus.” Aside from writing, Lazarus was also involved in charitable work for refugees. At Ward’s Island, she worked as an aide for Jewish immigrants who had been detained by Castle Garden immigration officials. She was deeply moved by the plight of the Russian Jews she met there and these experiences influenced her writing.
In 1883, William Maxwell Evarts and author Constance Cary Harrison asked Lazarus to compose a sonnet for the “Art Loan Fund Exhibition in Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for the Statue of Liberty” – an art and literary auction to raise funds for the Statue’s pedestal run by the American Committee for the Statue of Liberty. In turn, Lazarus, inspired by her own Sephardic Jewish heritage, her experiences working with refugees on Ward’s Island, and the plight of the immigrant, wrote “The New Colossus” on November 2, 1883. After the auction, the sonnet appeared in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World as well as The New York Times. She died in New York City on November 19, 1887, most likely from Hodgkin’s lymphoma and was buried in Brooklyn.
Excerpt from National Park Service website. Full text and additional images on NPS webpage about Emma Lazarus.
Photo: “Statue of Liberty at Sunset” by Eugene A. Melino, 2017.