EMMA LAZARUS QUOTES
American poet (1849-1887)
No man had ever heard a nightingale,
When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred
To study and define -- what is a bird.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Critic and Poet: An Apologue"
As the blind Milton's memory of light
The deaf Beethoven's phantasy of tone,
Wrought joys for them surpassing all things known
In our restricted sphere of sound and sight--
So while the glaring streets of brick and stone
Vex with heat, noise, and dust from morn till night,
I will give rein to Fancy, taking flight
From dismal now and here, and dwell alone,
With new-enfranchised senses.
EMMA LAZARUS
"City Visions"
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 LAZARUS
"The New Colossus"
Sweet empty sky of June without a stain,
Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hills
Warm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and plain,
That each dark copse and hollow overfills;
The rippling laugh of unseen, rain-fed rills,
Weeds delicate-flowered, white and pink and gold,
A murmur and a singing manifold.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Epochs: I. Youth"
There is no comfort looking forth nor back,
The present gives the lie to all her past.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Epochs: VI. Grief"
Alas! we wake: one scene alone remains--
The exiles by the streams of Babylon.
EMMA LAZARUS
"In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport"
In these transparent-clouded, gentle skies,
Wherethrough the moist beams of the soft June sun
Might any moment break, no sorrow lies,
No note of grief in swollen brooks that run,
No hint of woe in this subdued, calm tone
Of all the prospect unto dreamy eyes.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Epochs: II. Regret"
Hark to the music! How beneath the strain
Of reckless revelry, vibrates and sobs
One fundamental chord of constant pain,
The pulse-beat of the poet's heart that throbs.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Chopin"
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.
EMMA LAZARUS
"The New Colossus"
Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Critic and Poet: An Apologue"
The gray, austere old earth renews her youth
With dew-lines, sunshine, gossamer, and haze.
How still she lies and dreams, and veils the truth,
While all is fresh as in the early days!
EMMA LAZARUS
"Epochs: I. Youth"
The soul, at peace, reflects the peace without,
Forgetting grief as sunset skies forget
The morning's transient shower.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Afternoon"
Through all these years my couch thou didst prepare.
Thou art supreme Love--kiss me--I am thine!
EMMA LAZARUS
"Age and Death"
The eye is filled with beauty, and the heart
Rejoiced with sense of life and peace renewed;
And yet at such an hour as this, upstart
Vague myriad longings, restless, unsubdued,
And causeless tears from melancholy mood,
Strange discontent with earth's and nature's best,
Desires and yearnings that may find no rest.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Epochs: III. Longing"
Then Nature shaped a poet's heart -- a lyre
From out whose chords the lightest breeze that blows
Drew trembling music, wakening sweet desire.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Chopin"
When the stunned soul can first lift tired eyes
On her changed world of ruin, waste, and wrack,
Ah, what a pang of aching sharp surprise
Brings all sweet memories of the lost past back,
With wild, self-pitying grief of one betrayed,
Duped in a land of dreams where Truth is dead!
EMMA LAZARUS
"Epochs: V. Surprise"
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.
EMMA LAZARUS
"1492"
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.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Links"
Not while the fever of the blood is strong,
The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less
With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless
The poet-soul to help and soothe with song.
Not then she bids his trembling lips express
The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain.
Life is his poem then; flesh, sense, and brain
One full-stringed lyre attuned to happiness.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Life and Art"
Naught is too small and soft to turn and sting.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Epochs: VI. Grief"