Emma Lazarus

Still ours the dance, the feast, the glorious Psalm, The mystic lights of emblem, and the Word.

Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned; this man is neither simple, sensuous, nor impassioned; therefore he is not a poet.

Lo — a black line of birds in wavering thread Bore him the greetings of the deathless dead!

Then Nature shaped a poet's heart — a lyre From out whose chords the lightest breeze that blows Drew trembling music.

A lady 'twixt two knights' stone effigies, And every day in dusky glory steeps Their sculptured slumber of five centuries.

Down the long hall she glistens like a star, The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone, Yet none the less immortal, breathing on. Time's brutal hand hath maimed but could not mar.

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.

Night, and beneath star-blazoned summer skies Behold the Spirit of the musky South, A creole with still-burning, languid eyes, Voluptuous limbs and incense-breathing mouth.

To his sunny creed A thousand gloomy, warring sects succeed.

Freedom to love the law that Moses brought, To sing the songs of David, and to think The thoughts Gabirol to Spinoza taught, Freedom to dig the common earth, to drink The universal air — for this they sought Refuge o'er wave and continent, …

The hounded stag that has escaped the pack, And pants at ease within a thick-leaved dell; The unimprisoned bird that finds the track Through sun-bathed space, to where his fellows dwell; The martyr, granted respite from the rack, The …

Each separate soul contains the nation’s force, And both embrace the world.

Blow, Israel, the sacred cornet! Call Back to thy courts whatever faint heart throb With thine ancestral blood, thy need craves all.

His cup is gall, his meat is tears, His passion lasts a thousand years.

The Spirit is not dead, proclaim the word, Where lay dead bones, a host of armed men stand! I ope your graves, my people, saith the Lord, And I shall place you living in your land.

Oh deem not dead that martial fire, Say not the mystic flame is spent! With Moses' law and David's lyre. Your ancient strength remains unbent. Let but an Ezra rise anew, To lift the Banner of the Jew!

The burning noon sends floods of molten gold, The calm night crowns thee with its host of stars, The moon enfolds thee with her silver veil, And o'er thee e'er is arched the rainbow's span, — The gorgeous marriage-ring of Earth and Heaven. …

Thou art a giant altar, where the Earth Must needs send up her thanks to Him above Who did create her.

The word "Jew" is in constant use, even among so-called refined Christians, as a term of opprobrium, and is employed as a verb, to denote the meanest tricks.

The Jewish problem is as old as history and assumes in each age a new form. All the magnanimity, patience, charity, and humanity, which the Jews have manifested in return for centuries of persecution, have been thus far inadequate to …