EMMA LAZARUS

Emma Lazarus was wrong. America's first duty is to its own poor.

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-tossed to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Until we are all free, we are none of us free.

Jews are the intensive form of any nationality whose language and customs they adopt.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Thick February mists cling heavily To the dead earth and to each leafless tree, And closer down upon the hilltops draw, Dull forecasts there of bright, sure-coming spring; Yet the heart gathers hope and strange delight From this dear, unlovely, wished-for sight Of leaden-misted twilights lengthening.

I am perfectly conscious that this contempt and hatred underlies the general tone of the community towards us, and yet when I even remotely hint at the fact that we are not a favorite people I am accused of stirring up strife and setting barriers between the two sects.

The Jewish problem is as old as history, and assumes in each age a new form. The life or death of millions of human beings hangs upon its solution; its agitation revives the fiercest passions for good and for evil that inflame the human breast.

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

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.

No man had ever heard a nightingale, When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define -- what is a bird.

I am perfectly conscious that this contempt and hatred underlies the general tone of the community towards us, and yet when I even remotely hint at the fact that we are not a favorite people I am accused of stirring up strife and setting barriers between the two sects.

The particular article ought in my opinion to be treated with absolute contempt. It is too vile to touch.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

I am never going to write for the sake of writing.

Jews are the intensive form of any nationality whose language and customs they adopt.

My own curiosity and interest are insatiable.

Until we are all free, we are none of us free.

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-tossed to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

When angels visit earth, the messengers Of God's decree, they come as lightning, wind: Before the throne, they all are living fire.

Naught is too small and soft to turn and sting.

Let our first care today be the re-establishment of our physical strength, the reconstruction of our national organism, so that in future, where the respect due to us cannot be won by entreaty, it may be commanded, and where it cannot be commanded, it may be enforced.

Life's sharpest rapture is surcease of pain.

No man had ever heard a nightingale, When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define -- what is a bird.

Thick February mists cling heavily To the dead earth and to each leafless tree, And closer down upon the hilltops draw, Dull forecasts there of bright, sure-coming spring; Yet the heart gathers hope and strange delight From this dear, unlovely, wished-for sight Of leaden-misted twilights lengthening.

There is no comfort looking forth nor back, The present gives the lie to all her past.

Thou two-faced year, Mother of Change and Fate...

The soul, at peace, reflects the peace without, Forgetting grief as sunset skies forget The morning's transient shower.

The Jewish problem is as old as history, and assumes in each age a new form. The life or death of millions of human beings hangs upon its solution; its agitation revives the fiercest passions for good and for evil that inflame the human breast.

The little and the great are joined in one By God's great force. The wondrous golden sun Is linked unto the glow-worm's tiny spark; The eagle soars to heaven in his flight; And in those realms of space, all bathed in light, Soar none except the eagle and the lark.

Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned.

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.

I seem to have always one little window looking but into life.

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