Author: Emma Lazarus

Prelude Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea: Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in […]

No man had ever heard a nightingale, When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define what is […]

When the vexed hubbub of our world of gain Roars round about me as I walk the street, The myriad […]

Not while the fever of the blood is strong, The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less With […]

The bird sits spelled upon the lithe brown wrist Of yonder turbaned fowler, who had lamed No feather limb, but […]

So, Calchas, on the sacred Palatine, You thought of Mopsus, and o’er wastes of sea A flower brought your message. […]

I As the blind Milton’s memory of light, The deaf Beethoven’s phantasy of tone, Wroght joys for them surpassing all […]

I A dream of interlinking hands, of feet Tireless to spin the unseen, fairy woof Of the entangling waltz. Bright […]

Last night I slept, and when I woke her kiss Still floated on my lips. For we had strayed Together […]

1856 Paris, from throats of iron, silver, brass, Joy-thundering cannon, blent with chiming bells, And martial strains, the full-voiced pæan […]

What, can these dead bones live, whose sap is dried By twenty scorching centuries of wrong? Is this the House […]

Here was a man who watched the river flow Past the huge town, one gray November day. Round him in […]

Music and silver chimes and sunlit air, Freighted with the scent of honeyed orange-flower; Glad, friendly festal faces everywhere. She, […]

Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope, The freshness of the elder lays, the might Of manly, modern passion shall […]

Thou two-faced year, Mother of Change and Fate, Didst weep when Spain cast forth with flaming sword, The children of […]

Here, where the noises of the busy town, The ocean’s plunge and roar can enter not, We stand and gaze […]

Oft have I brooded on defeat and pain, The pathos of the stupid, stumbling throng. These I ignore to-day and […]

As when a father dies, his children draw About the empty hearth, their loss to cheat With uttered praise & […]

The fervent, pale-faced Mother ere she sleep, Looks out upon the zigzag-lighted square, The beautiful bare trees, the blue night-air, […]

Therefore I dare reveal my private woe, The secret blots of my imperfect heart, Nor strive to shrink or swell […]

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, […]

Well-nigh two thousand years hath Israel Suffered the scorn of man for love of God; Endured the outlaw’s ban, the […]

I see it as it looked one afternoon In August,-by a fresh soft breeze o’erblown. The swiftness of the tide, […]

Down the long hall she glistens like a star, The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone, Yet none the […]