Emma Lazarus

Symphonic Studies (After Schumann)

Prelude Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea: Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony With the wild, restless tone of air and sky. Shall we not call

Critic and Poet: an Epilogue

No man had ever heard a nightingale, When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define what is a bird, To classify by rote and book, nor fail To mark its structure

St Michael's Chapel

When the vexed hubbub of our world of gain Roars round about me as I walk the street, The myriad noise of Traffic, and the beat Of Toil’s incessant hammer, the fierce strain Of

Life and Art

Not while the fever of the blood is strong, The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless The poet-sould to help and soothe

The Taming of the Falcon

The bird sits spelled upon the lithe brown wrist Of yonder turbaned fowler, who had lamed No feather limb, but the winged spirit tamed With his compelling eye. He need not trust The silken

From One Augur to Another

So, Calchas, on the sacred Palatine, You thought of Mopsus, and o’er wastes of sea A flower brought your message. I divine (Through my deep art) the kindly mockery That played about your lips

City Visions

I As the blind Milton’s memory of light, The deaf Beethoven’s phantasy of tone, Wroght joys for them surpassing all things known In our restricted sphere of sound and sight, So while the glaring

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

Assurance

Last night I slept, and when I woke her kiss Still floated on my lips. For we had strayed Together in my dream, through some dim glade, Where the shy moonbeams scarce dared light

1856 Paris, from throats of iron, silver, brass, Joy-thundering cannon, blent with chiming bells, And martial strains, the full-voiced pæan swells. The air is starred with flags, the chanted mass Throngs all the churches,

The New Ezekiel

What, can these dead bones live, whose sap is dried By twenty scorching centuries of wrong? Is this the House of Israel, whose pride Is as a tale that’s told, an ancient song? Are

The Cranes of Ibicus

Here was a man who watched the river flow Past the huge town, one gray November day. Round him in narrow high-piled streets at play The boys made merry as they saw him go,

Marriage Bells

Music and silver chimes and sunlit air, Freighted with the scent of honeyed orange-flower; Glad, friendly festal faces everywhere. She, rapt from all in this unearthly hour, With cloudlike, cast-back veil and faint-flushed cheek,

Echoes

Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope, The freshness of the elder lays, the might Of manly, modern passion shall alight Upon my Muse’s lips, nor may I cope (Who veiled and screened by

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

In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport

Here, where the noises of the busy town, The ocean’s plunge and roar can enter not, We stand and gaze around with tearful awe, And muse upon the consecrated spot. No signs of life

Success

Oft have I brooded on defeat and pain, The pathos of the stupid, stumbling throng. These I ignore to-day and only long To pour my soul forth in one trumpet strain, One clear, grief-shattering,

To R. W. E

As when a father dies, his children draw About the empty hearth, their loss to cheat With uttered praise & love, & oft repeat His all-familiar words with whispered awe. The honored habit of

Influence

The fervent, pale-faced Mother ere she sleep, Looks out upon the zigzag-lighted square, The beautiful bare trees, the blue night-air, The revelation of the star-strewn deep, World above world, and heaven over heaven. Between

Sympathy

Therefore I dare reveal my private woe, The secret blots of my imperfect heart, Nor strive to shrink or swell mine own desert, Nor beautify nor hide. For this I know, That even as

The New Colossus

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

The Supreme Sacrifice

Well-nigh two thousand years hath Israel Suffered the scorn of man for love of God; Endured the outlaw’s ban, the yoke, the rod, With perfect patience. Empires rose and fell, Around him Nebo was

Long Island Sound

I see it as it looked one afternoon In August,-by a fresh soft breeze o’erblown. The swiftness of the tide, the light thereon, A far-off sail, white as a crescent moon. The shining waters

Venus of the Louvre

Down the long hall she glistens like a star, The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone, Yet none the less immortal, breathing on. Time’s brutal hand hath maimed but could not mar. When