Home ⇒ 📌Emma Lazarus ⇒ 1492
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!”
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- The Borders To say that she came into me, From another world, is not true. Nothing comes into the universe And nothing leaves it. My mother-I mean my daughter did not Enter me. She began to exist Inside me-she appeared within me. And my mother did not enter me. When she lay down, to pray, on me, […]...
- Enslaved Oh when I think of my long-suffering race, For weary centuries despised, oppressed, Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place In the great life line of the Christian West; And in the Black Land disinherited, Robbed in the ancient country of its birth, My heart grows sick with hate, becomes as lead, For this my […]...
- Pleading for and with Youth Sin has undone our wretched race; But Jesus has restored, And brought the sinner face to face With his forgiving Lord. This we repeat from year to year And press upon our youth; Lord, give them an attentive ear, Lord, save them by Thy truth! Blessings upon the rising race! Make this a happy hour, […]...
- 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 the tree-tops and the skies, her sight Rests on a steadfast, ruddy-shining light, High in the tower, an earthly star of […]...
- The Sunset stopped on Cottages The Sunset stopped on Cottages Where Sunset hence must be For treason not of His, but Life’s, Gone Westerly, Today The Sunset stopped on Cottages Where Morning just begun What difference, after all, Thou mak’st Thou supercilious Sun?...
- Circle and Square ‘I give you half of me; No more, lest I should make A ground for perjury. For your sake, for my sake, Half will you take?’ ‘Half I’ll not take nor give, For he who gives gives all. By halves you cannot live; Then let the barrier fall, In one circle have all.’ “A wise […]...
- The Bush Girl So you rode from the range where your brothers “select,” Through the ghostly grey bush in the dawn – You rode slowly at first, lest her heart should suspect That you were glad to be gone; You had scarcely the courage to glance back at her By the homestead receding from view, And you breathed […]...
- Expectans Expectavi From morn to midnight, all day through, I laugh and play as others do, I sin and chatter, just the same As others with a different name. And all year long upon the stage I dance and tumble and do rage So vehemently, I scarcely see The inner and eternal me. I have a temple […]...
- Dr. Siegfried Iseman I said when they handed me my diploma, I said to myself I will be good And wise and brave and helpful to others; I said I will carry the Christian creed Into the practice of medicine! Somehow the world and the other doctors Know what’s in your heart as soon as you make This […]...
- A Song Of A Young Lady To Her Ancient Lover Ancient Person, for whom I All the flattering youth defy, Long be it e’er thou grow old, Aching, shaking, crazy cold; But still continue as thou art, Ancient Person of my heart. On thy withered lips and dry, Which like barren furrows lie, Brooding kisses I will pour, Shall thy youthful heart restore, Such kind […]...
- Written at Stonehenge Thou noblest monument of Albion’s isle! Whether by Merlin’s aid, from Scythia’s shore, To Amber’s fatal plain Pendragon bore, Huge frame of giant-hands, the mighty pile T’ entomb his Britons slain by Hengist’s guile: Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore, Taught ‘mid thy massy maze their mystic lore: Or Danish chiefs, enrich’d with savage […]...
- An Indian Love Song He Lift up the veils that darken the delicate moon Of thy glory and grace, Withhold not, O love, from the night Of my longing the joy of thy luminous face, Give me a spear of the scented keora Guarding thy pinioned curls, Or a silken thread from the fringes That trouble the dream of […]...
- Stanzas I’ll not weep that thou art going to leave me, There’s nothing lovely here; And doubly will the dark world grieve me, While thy heart suffers there. I’ll not weep, because the summer’s glory Must always end in gloom; And, follow out the happiest story – It closes with a tomb! And I am weary […]...
- Carrowmore IT’S a lonely road through bogland to the lake at Carrowmore, And a sleeper there lies dreaming where the water laps the shore; Though the moth-wings of the twilight in their purples are unfurled, Yet his sleep is filled with music by the masters of the world. There’s a hand is white as silver that […]...
- Race of Veterans RACE of veterans! Race of victors! Race of the soil, ready for conflict! race of the conquering march! (No more credulity’s race, abiding-temper’d race;) Race henceforth owning no law but the law of itself; Race of passion and the storm. 5...
- The Barrier I must not gaze at them although Your eyes are dawning day; I must not watch you as you go Your sun-illumined way; I hear but I must never heed The fascinating note, Which, fluting like a river reed, Comes from your trembing throat; I must not see upon your face Love’s softly glowing spark; […]...
- Chicks THE CHICK in the egg picks at the shell, cracks open one oval world, and enters another oval world. “Cheep… cheep… cheep” is the salutation of the newcomer, the emigrant, the casual at the gates of the new world. “Cheep… cheep” … from oval to oval, sunset to sunset, star to star. It is at […]...
- That time of year thou mayst in me behold (Sonnet 73) That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west; Which by and by […]...
- Noah's Flood (excerpts) Eternal and all-working God, which wast Before the world, whose frame by Thee was cast, And beautified with beamful lamps above, By thy great wisdom set how they should move To guide the seasons, equally to all, Which come and go as they do rise and fall. My mighty Maker, O do thou infuse Such […]...
- O Dull Cold Northern Sky O DULL cold northern sky, O brawling sabbath bells, O feebly twittering Autumn bird that tells The year is like to die! O still, spoiled trees, O city ways, O sun desired in vain, O dread presentiment of coming rain That cloys the sullen days! Thee, heart of mine, I greet. In what hard mountain […]...
- The Black Cottage We chanced in passing by that afternoon To catch it in a sort of special picture Among tar-banded ancient cherry trees, Set well back from the road in rank lodged grass, The little cottage we were speaking of, A front with just a door between two windows, Fresh painted by the shower a velvet black. […]...
- Sandhill People I TOOK away three pictures. One was a white gull forming a half-mile arch from the pines toward Waukegan. One was a whistle in the little sandhills, a bird crying either to the sunset gone or the dusk come. One was three spotted waterbirds, zigzagging, cutting scrolls and jags, writing a bird Sanscrit of wing […]...
- Sonnets viii THAT time of year thou may’st in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang, In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after Sunset fadeth in the West, Which by and by […]...
- Christ of Everywhere “Christ of the Andes,” Christ of Everywhere, Great lover of the hills, the open air, And patient lover of impatient men Who blindly strive and sin and strive again, Thou Living Word, larger than any creed, Thou Love Divine, uttered in human deed, Oh, teach the world, warring and wandering still, Thy way of Peace, […]...
- The Temper (II) It cannot be. Where is that mighty joy, Which just now took up all my heart? Lord, if thou must needs use thy dart, Save that, and me; or sin for both destroy. The grosser world stand to thy word and art; But thy diviner world of grace Thou suddenly dost raise and race, And […]...
- Prayer XXIII Then a priestess said, “Speak to us of Prayer.” And he answered, saying: You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether? And if […]...
- Sonnet LXXIII That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by […]...
- To Joseph Joachim Belov’d of all to whom that Muse is dear Who hid her spirit of rapture from the Greek, Whereby our art excelleth the antique, Perfecting formal beauty to the ear; Thou that hast been in England many a year The interpreter who left us nought to seek, Making Beethoven’s inmost passion speak, Bringing the soul […]...
- Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by […]...
- Psalm 8 part 2 v. 3ff, paraphrased. L. M. Adam and Christ, lords of the old and new creation. Lord, what was man, when made at first, Adam the offspring of the dust, That thou shouldst set him and his race But just below an angel’s place? That thou shouldst raise his nature so, And make him lord of […]...
- The Negro Speaks Of Rivers I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the […]...
- 352. The Song of Death FAREWELL, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies, Now gay with the broad setting sun; Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties, Our race of existence is run! Thou grim King of Terrors; thou Life’s gloomy foe! Go, frighten the coward and slave; Go, teach them to tremble, fell tyrant! but know […]...
- Hope in Failure THOUGH now thou hast failed and art fallen, despair not because of defeat, Though lost for a while be thy heaven and weary of earth be thy feet, For all will be beauty about thee hereafter through sorrowful years, And lovely the dews for thy chilling and ruby thy heart-drip of tears. The eyes that […]...
- New Year's Morning Only a night from old to new! Only a night, and so much wrought! The Old Year’s heart all weary grew, But said: The New Year rest has brought.” The Old Year’s hopes its heart laid down, As in a grave; but trusting, said: “The blossoms of the New Year’s crown Bloom from the ashes […]...
- Carrion Comfort Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist-slack they may be-these last strands of man In me уr, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be. But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me Thy […]...
- The Retreat 1 Happy those early days, when I 2 Shin’d in my angel-infancy! 3 Before I understood this place 4 Appointed for my second race, 5 Or taught my soul to fancy ought 6 But a white, celestial thought; 7 When yet I had not walk’d above 8 A mile or two from my first love, […]...
- The Song Of Empedocles And you, ye stars, Who slowly begin to marshal, As of old, in the fields of heaven, Your distant, melancholy lines! Have you, too, survived yourselves? Are you, too, what I fear to become? You, too, once lived; You too moved joyfully Among august companions, In an older world, peopled by Gods, In a mightier […]...
- Still Falls the Rain Still falls the Rain – Dark as the world of man, black as our loss – Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails Upon the Cross. Still falls the Rain With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammer-beat In the Potter’s Field, and the sound of the […]...
- Sonnet LXIII: Truce, Gentle Love Truce, gentle Love, a parley now I crave; Methinks ’tis long since first these wars begun; Nor thou nor I the better yet can have; Bad is the match where neither party won. I offer free conditions of fair peace, My heart for hostage that it shall remain; Discharge our forces, here let malice cease, […]...
- A Valediction: Of Weeping Let me pour forth My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here, For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear, And by this mintage they are something worth, For thus they be Pregnant of thee; Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more; When a tear falls that, thou falls which […]...