The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
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!”
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Though I remember reading that the statue was originally a monument to emancipation, by the time the statue was erected, Reconstruction had been suppressed and the statue was rebranded as a welcome to immigrants. Hence, Lazarus’s poem, as contrasted to “a broken chain and shackle lie at her feet as she walks forward” (Wikipedia). It would take 80 years to correct that.