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!”
In 1883, poet Emma Lazarus was asked by friends to compose a sonnet for an auction to raise funds for the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal. According to the National Park Service website, “Lazarus, inspired by her own Sephardic Jewish heritage, her experiences working with refugees on Ward's Island, and the plight of the immigrant, wrote ‘The New Colossus’ on November 2, 1883. After the auction, the sonnet appeared in Joseph Pulitzer's New York World as well as The New York Times. … It was not until 1901, 17 years after Lazarus's death, that Georgina Schuyler, a friend of hers, found a book containing the sonnet in a bookshop and organized a civic effort to resurrect the lost work. Her efforts paid off and in 1903, words from the sonnet were inscribed on a plaque and placed on the inner wall of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Today, the plaque is on display in the Statue of Liberty Exhibit in the Statue's pedestal.”
"The New Colossus" is a sonnet that American poet Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) wrote in 1883 to raise money for the construction of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.[2] In 1903, the poem was engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal's lower level.History of the poem
This poem was written as a donation to an auction of art and literary works conducted by the "Art Loan Fund Exhibition in Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for the Statue of Liberty" to raise money for the pedestal's construction. Lazarus's contribution was solicited by fundraiser William Maxwell Evarts. Initially she refused but Constance Cary Harrison convinced her that the statue would be of great significance to immigrants sailing into the harbor.
"The New Colossus" was the first entry read at the exhibit's opening, but was forgotten and played no role at the opening of the statue in 1886. In 1901, Lazarus's friend Georgina Schuyler began an effort to memorialize Lazarus and her poem, which succeeded in 1903 when a plaque bearing the text of the poem was put on the inner wall of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
The line "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" is missing a comma, and reads "Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" on the plaque hanging inside the Statue of Liberty since its unveiling in 1903.
The original manuscript is held by the American Jewish Historical Society
Contents
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The title of the poem and the first two lines refer to the Colossus of Rhodes, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, sometimes described as standing astride the harbor.
The "sea-washed, sunset gates" are the mouths of the Hudson and East Rivers, to the west of Brooklyn. The "imprisoned lightning" refers to the electric light in the torch, then a novelty.
The "air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame" refers to New York Harbor between New York City and Brooklyn, which were consolidated into one unit in 1898, 15 years after the poem was written.
The "huddled masses" are the many immigrants coming to the United States (many of them through Ellis Island at the port of New York).
Influence
Paul Auster wrote that "Bartholdi's gigantic effigy was originally intended as a monument to the principles of international republicanism, but 'The New Colossus' reinvented the statue's purpose, turning Liberty into a welcoming mother, a symbol of hope to the outcasts and downtrodden of the world."[8]
John T. Cunningham wrote that "The Statue of Liberty was not conceived and sculpted as a symbol of immigration, but it quickly became so as immigrant ships passed under the torch and the shining face, heading toward Ellis Island. However, it was [Lazarus's poem] that permanently stamped on Miss Liberty the role of unofficial greeter of incoming immigrants."[9]
The poem has entered the political realm. It was quoted in John F. Kennedy's book A Nation of Immigrants (1958) as well as a 2010 political speech by President Obama advocating immigration policy reform. On August 2nd, 2017, the poem and its importance to the Statue of Liberty's symbolism and thus the effect on American immigration policy, was debated in a White House briefing.
Classical composer David Ludwig has set the poem to music, which was performed at the worship service of President Obama's 2013 inauguration ceremony
Author and scholar Julia Gordon-Bramer theorizes that Sylvia Plath's poem, "Lady Lazarus," is about the Statue of Liberty and Jewish immigrant poet Emma Lazarus in her book, Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath, volume one (2014, Stephen F. Austin State University Press).
Parts of the poem also appear in popular culture. The Broadway musical Miss Liberty, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, an immigrant himself, used the final stanza beginning "Give me your tired, your poor" as the basis for a song. It was also read in the 1941 film Hold Back the Dawn as well as being recited by the heroine in Alfred Hitchcock's wartime film Saboteur.Harpist and singer Joanna Newsom indirectly references the poem in her 2015 song "Sapokanikan," in contrast to the forbidding colossus of Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias."
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