NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/soc/history/10452

Text File | 1992-12-30 | 2.4 KB | 53 lines

Newsgroups: soc.history
Path: sparky!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnewsc!cbfsb!att-out!cbnewsj!ecl
From: [e-mail] (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Subject: Re: source "tired, huddled masses.."? ON Liberty.
Organization: AT&T
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 15:02:54 GMT
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]>
Lines: 42

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (carl loeber) writes:
> Does anyone know offhand from whence comes the phrase
> on the statue of Liberty?

The article I wrote for the recent Jewish Heritage Month says:

Emma Lazarus:
This poet, who is best known for her poem about America's acceptance of
immigrants, was in fact born in the United States in 1849 to a cultured
family of Sephardic Jews.  Educated in languages and the classics while
still young (and during a time when girls were frequently denied such
education altogether), she published her first book of poems and
translations at the age of 17, and at 21 published another collection
("Admetus and Other Poems") inscribed to Ralph Waldo Emerson.  She
also wrote a novel, "Alide," based on Goethe's autobiography which
won praise from such authors as Ivan Turgenev. Other works include
"The Spagnoleto," "Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine" (a
translation of Heine's works), "The Dance to Death" (about the
accusations of well-poisoning brought against the Jews during the Black
Plague), "Songs of a Semite" (dedicated to George Eliot), and "By
the Waters of Babylon."  But her best known work is "The New
Colossus," which is inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty:

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-tossed, to me,
I life my lamp beside the golden door!"

(Note: the "twin cities" mentioned are New York and Brooklyn; the
latter was a separate city until 1898.)

Evelyn C. Leeper  |  [phone]  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  [e-mail]