Home Mind Poetry and Short Stories New Colossus - Emma Lazarus (Poem from the Statue of Liberty)
New Colossus - Emma Lazarus (Poem from the Statue of Liberty) PDF Print E-mail
Written by Emma Lazarus   

Statue of Liberty - New Colossus Poem - Emma Lazarus

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!"

..................

Emma LazarusEmma Lazarus' famous lines caught our national imagination and continue to inspire the way we think about freedom and exile today. Written in 1883, her celebrated poem, "The New Colossus," is engraved on a plaque on the Statue of Liberty.

Over the years, the sonnet has become a part of American culture, serving as everything from an Irving Berlin show tune to a call for immigrants' rights. It represents the incredible power of the immigrants who created America and continue to help it grow and evolve. Hard working immigrants who came from poor backgrounds and hard conditions to try to improve their lives and the lives of their families. It is a testament to American spirit, never to forget the United States of America is a land made of immigrants, freedom and acceptance and that each and everyone of those living in America now, with exception of the Native American people (the only real Americans), can call themselves American because their families were struggling immigrants who had the strength to face an uncertain future and were given the chance to better their situations in the land of opportunity.
That is the most important message carried by the beautiful "Mother of Exiles". 

New Colossus - Immigrants - Statue of Liberty
 

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